We've all cracked our share of fortune cookies. Occasionally they're amusing, more often, banal. And, clearly — since they're printed in English, except for the mini language lesson that exhorts you to "speak Chinese" — they're tailored for an American audience. (Fortune cookies exist abroad, too, but are considerably less common.)
So how did a message that evokes the people's communes find its way to a New York restaurant? I received this fortune (the flip side is blank) sometime around 1990, perhaps as early as the mid-1980s, very likely on the Upper West Side. I don't remember any more about my fellow diners or the occasion, but you can trust that we were eating family style.
"You can depend on the trust of the collective"
Fortune cookie collected c. 1990, New York
