# What is the Chinese term for "fortune cookie"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 10, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154 "2006-06-10T02:12:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/1 "2006-06-10T02:12:42Z")
Inspired by [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=374904) thread, a question I’ve wrestled with for many years. I’ve lived most of my life in China and I’ve never heard of such a thing as a “fortune cookie”. After moving to the West, finding out about this wonderful invention and returning to China, I questioned my relatives and friends, a fairly diverse group in regional terms, and none of them had ever heard of such a thing either. I was unable to even find a halfway close Chinese translation of the term “fortune cookie”. The closest I came was when a friend from Hong Kong related to me that these items were known in Hong Kong as “Mei Guo Bin”, or “American Cookies”, since it is widely known that Americans hold some odd beliefs about them, but never having been to Hong Kong I am unable to verify the accuracy of this claim. Referece: [Wikipedia on the history of the fortune cookie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_cookie) So, any Chinese dopers have the straight dope? Is there a term I could use to explain the idea of fortune cookies to my Chinese relatives? Simply calling them by the literal name “Jian Bin”, which is what the Chinese resturants here call them, would probably only confuse things further. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/2 "2006-06-10T16:41:31Z")
Gorramit I can’t be the first person who’s ever asked this. Come on teeming millions, I want my $15 worth! ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/3 "2006-06-10T17:21:56Z")
> [@kawaiitentaclebeast](#): > > Gorramit I can’t be the first person who’s ever asked this. Come on teeming millions, I want my $15 worth! Well, I personaly haven’t the glimmerings of a clue but I asked a Chinese friend who also thought _Jian Bin_ to but then came up with: > [@](#): > > wait… > > i just looked up wikipedia, i know what that is…we call it “fortune dumpling” because of its shape. i can easily find it at the local Chinese supermarket… I have vague recollections of seeing something similar in our local-ish Chinese Supermarkets but haven’t been in far too long a while. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/4 "2006-06-10T17:57:21Z")
Why would there be a term for them if they don’t exist there? Fortune cookies are a (wonderful!) American invention and they’re not really popular in Asia… you saw that for yourself, didn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/5 "2006-06-10T18:40:50Z")
We call them… “biscuits”. Yeah, we haven’t really got a name for 'em either. I bet the folks in Taiwan/Hong Kong have come up with something though, even if it’s just “fou tun ku qi” or some crap. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/6 "2006-06-10T18:54:04Z")
Lived in Hong Kong three years, went to western and Chinese restaurants on a very regular basis, and never saw them. Have only ever seen them in the US, and occasionally as an import novelty (from the US) over here. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/7 "2006-06-10T19:47:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Why would there be a term for them if they don’t exist there? Fortune cookies are a (wonderful!) American invention and they’re not really popular in Asia… you saw that for yourself, didn’t you? Since they were ostensibly invented by expatriate Chinese, it would only seem logical that they had a Chinese name, it would be mighty silly for them to be refered to by their english names in common speech, no? ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/8 "2006-06-10T22:33:17Z")
> [@kawaiitentaclebeast](#): > > Since they were ostensibly invented by expatriate Chinese… That’s heavily disputed. It seems most likely that the fortune cookie was introduced to the US at the [Japanese Tea Garden](http://www.inetours.com/Pages/SFNbrhds/Japanese_Tea_Garden.html) in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, by the landscape designer [Makoto Hagiwara](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makoto_Hagiwara) around 1914. His great-great grandson, Erik Sumiharu Hagiwara-Nagata, discusses the “invention” [here](http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000EcM) (about one-third of the way down the page): > [@](#): > > This confection is a very old folk art long known in Japan as ‘Tsuji ura sembei’ and is associated with New Year festivities at Shinto Shrines. This idea was introduced here in San Francisco at the japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park. The confection, as it is known in Japan, is not sweet. The sweetening of it was done to suit American tastes. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/9 "2006-06-10T22:38:08Z")
> [@kawaiitentaclebeast](#): > > Since they were ostensibly invented by expatriate Chinese, it would only seem logical that they had a Chinese name, “Those stupid cookies to get the dumb Americans to come into the restaurant.” Invented by the same guy who created General Tsao’s Chicken, also know as, “Let’s See If Those Morons Will Eat the Peppers”, or “Watch the Tears Flow”. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/10 "2006-06-11T01:40:31Z")
Hah. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/11 "2006-06-11T07:09:24Z")
xing4yun4bing3 or literally ‘fortune’ & ‘cookie’…according to china wife. xing4yun4quan4 is lottery. posting from pda now so cannot display characters. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/12 "2006-06-11T08:09:37Z")
As far as I know, it’s just called a cookie, period. And there are a lot of Chinese and Chinese restaurants in my neck of the woods. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-chinese-term-for-fortune-cookie/360154/13 "2006-06-11T08:15:44Z")
幸运饼 (xing4yun4bing3)