Wong Food Inc. describes itself as the largest manufacturer of noodles, wrappers and fortune cookies in the United States. The company began as a noodle shop in Manhattan’s Chinatown in 1973 and has grown since then. After Wonton Food’s recent purchase of a fortune cookie company, the Queens, New York manufacturer turns out 4.5 million fortune cookies a day.
Lau joined the company in the 1980s and the former corporate banker holds two positions within the company. He is the Chief Financial Officer as well as the Chief Fortune Writer with Wonton Food. Lau said he was given the job of writing fortunes because of his English skills.
Sadly, Lau is resigning from his position of Chief Fortune Writer. Lau told Time he used to write about 100 fortunes a year. Now he can only manage to write two or three a month. So as a result of his suffering writer’s blog, he resigned as the company’s Chief Fortune Writer and he is training James Wong, 43, to take over for him. Wong is the nephew of the man who founded Wonton Food.
Wong, an assistant vice president of the company, told NBC News writing fortune cookies just fell into his lap because he “grew up in the fortune cookie business.”
The style of the fortunes has changed over the years as a result of experimentation. And not all the fortunes were happy ones. One of the fortunes read “Today is a disastrous day. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Wong says the purpose of the fortunes are to make people happy. He said, “When they eat their fortune cookie, I want the customers to open the fortune, read it, maybe laugh, and leave the restaurant happy.
But not everyone is happy about some of the fortunes. One woman complained her husband’s fortune said he would find romance on his next business trip and he ended up having an affair. And in 2005, Lau and the company were investigated after it was determined 110 players of the Powerball lottery won a total of $19 million using lucky numbers found on the back of the fortune. Nothing came of the investigation.
The company latest decision was to promote wellness and serenity with the fortunes and it was this theme that gave Lau his writer’s block.
Lau has no regrets about giving up his job as Chief Fortune Writer and handing it over to Wong. Lau is keeping his job as Wanton Food’s Chief Financial Officer.
The origin of fortune cookies
There are different theories about how fortune cookies came into being. Lau believes they originated in China during the Ming Dynasty when people gave each other mooncakes that contained secret messages. Others believe the cookies originated in Japan and brought to the U.S. by Japanese restaurant workers. When Japanese workers were put in internment camps during World War II, their jobs were taken over by Chinese workers and fortune cookies became associated with the Chinese.
