Wise words
Fortune cookies and Benny Hill…
Despite being forever associated with Chinese food, and therefore perhaps Chinese culture, the fortune cookie is a Japanese invention, modified in the US where it has become most popular.
The Japanese version has different ingredients, but the most noticeable difference is that the fortune is not inside, rather it is tucked in the crease on the outside.
The fortune cookie is rather absent from daily Chinese life and meals.
So, why Benny Hill? Well, I’ve noticed a lot of US based programmes attaching Benny Hill to British humour, but the truth is that we don’t watch his programmes over here, and most British people don’t find it funny in any way…
In Britain, Benny Hill is taboo…
Mark Lewisohn, Biographer
Benny Hill is our fortune cookie, something we don’t really have but is stuck to us – I’m sure every nation has one…
Ben on 
Ty on
3. i could never figure how they got the fortunes into the cookies.
2. so confucious was japanese? i didn’t know that.
1. everything lies in silence.
Who’s Benny Hill?
He is a song. Duh-dla-dah-dunny-dunny-dun DA da-da….
British ‘Comedian’, typically known for running around in a stop-framey kind of way, often chasing women or being chased by women of vaious states of undress…
I would post a video, but I don’t want that sort of thing anywhere near my site.
And as Davey points out, he has a themetune…
Australia seems to do it the other way. We claim things that aren’t attached to us: actors, sporting heroes and anything from New Zealand.
franzy, we have our bastard children too
-crocodile dundee / steve irwin
-john howard
-99% of aussie hip-hop
australia and new zealand always seem to be dancing together.
you two should get married, have some kids. build a bridge
or something. there’s enough bastard chillies in the world.
Argh…I have not been on the Flowfield Unity all summer!
I feel ashamed.
But you know why it is? Because I still don’t get emails telling me when there are new comments, and because of my crappy memory, I forget to check for updates without them.
Dear Adam,
Can you fix it for me?
Ah, Jim’ll fix it. Crappiest Chinese Proverb ever will say “Write to Jim. It works better than Gordon, at any rate”
Man, talk about an effective way to illustrate your point!
Benny Hill sucks.
Thanks… you’re not wrong there.
Well, obviously he doesn’t suck quite as hard as he once did, being dead and all… but still.
Australia has hip-hop, that’s a new one to me.
Do you think that paper they stick in the middle of a fortune cookie is sterile or at least somewhat clean?
I’ve been in Shanghai for almost five years now and have never seen a fortune cookie, and rarely have even seen spring rolls.
If the Welsh can have Goldie Looking Chain then Australia is welcome to have a bit of hiphop.
“Do you think that paper…” – I don’t know. I tried looking for some information on the manufacturing process, but was unable to find this out. I also tried to find out at what temperature the cookies are cooked to see if that would be enough to sterilize them… I’m assuming that they must be sterile, otherwise it would be hard to sell the cookies, plus I have never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from that particular part of a takeaway.
when australian hip hop first happened (well, in a mainstream biggish way) it was kind of interesting but for some reason it really annoys me
and its hard to make music annoy me
ive never had a fortune cookie, but i wonder if theyre like horoscopes, you know, you can look at them and be like hey yeaahh, that totally happened to be today because its just that vague.
Yeah, they’re usually more vague than horroscopes;
“Your smile will tell you what makes you feel good.”
“Face facts with dignity.”
“Good sense is the master of human life.”
The exception to this is wher the fortunes is a series of numbers, such as lottery numbers…
The U.S. Powerball lottery drawing of the March 30, 2005 game produced an unprecedented 110 second-place winners, all of whom picked five numbers correctly with no Powerball number. The total came out to $19.4 million in unexpected payouts. 89 tickets won $100,000, but 21 additional tickets won $500,000 due to the Power Play multiplier option.
Powerball officials initially suspected fraud, but it turned out that all the winners received their numbers from fortune cookies made by Wonton Food Inc., a fortune cookie factory in Long Island City, Queens, New York. The number combinations printed on fortunes are reused in thousands of cookies per day. The five winning numbers were 22, 28, 32, 33, and 39. The sixth number in the fortune, 40, did not match the Powerball number, 42.
I don’t recall Benny Hill material, but I love fortune cookies. Well, not the cookie, but the fortune is fun and silly.
Then please, for the love of which ever deity you follow, don’t go looking for Mr Hill.
That’s a good point you have there… does anyone actually like the cookie bit of a fortune cookie?
I do.
if you don’t have a bit of the “cookie bit,”
your fortune won’t come true.
I think everything that’s stuck to America we actually do have. Unfortunately.
never really liked benny hill, though BBC america has some good shows.
Confucius say man with hands in pocky feel cocky.
Thanks for the heads up about Benny Hill, I’ll be sure to keep my love for him a closely guarded secret. (I was five, okay?!)
What are English Muffins called over there?
“muffins”? hot muffins?
Indeed, we just call them ‘muffins’.
I think the distinction is for US cizitizens that also have those rather nice sweet things called ‘muffins’… we just call it cake, or at least we did. Now, especially with the onset of Starbucks etc. the use of the word muffin to mean a cup cake or such has take a firm hold.
No one knows how, as a society, we are going to cope with having two items of food, similar enough but distinct, with the same name.
“New Muffins” Like “New Coke.”
US citizens also have lots of diabetes, beware the mufficupcake.
There are these things my aunt bought called corn cakes, and they’re like rice cakes’ spiffier cousin, but I asked for corn cakes in one store and was taken to muffins.
All is turning to muffins. -_-
“All is turning to muffins.”
i know you’re trying to lament, but this sounds pretty ok to me…
ha!
Yeah, the muffin era dawns… expect crumbs.