The Fortune Pt.2

"Don't you get it?" Daniel laughs.

"It's an analogy, right?" El replies, unamused. But, it's kinda ironic how you're a palm reader, and you're claiming that I'm the fortune cookie."

"What I mean, El, is that in Asia you are not considered Asian because you grew up in America."

The enlightening statement opens El's mind in a way that allows the smoke of confusion of who he was, a lingering question since grade school, to finally blow away.

"In America," he adds, "you are not American because, on the outside, you are Asian. Just like a fortune cookie!"

Daniel laughs as if to place emphasis on the awkward insight which is slowly accepted by El, who risks to clarify his disappointment with his natural perception of his place in the world. "So, what you are saying is people aren't ready for an Asian Superman?"

"El," Daniel empathetically begins, "I didn't say that. What I mean is that when you understand the history of the fortune cookie, then you may arrive to a truth your parents were not capable of explaining to you."

"Where is the fortune cookie from?"

Daniel lays his chopsticks on top of the dipping dish that has only a residue of soy sauce remaining. Taking a sip of his hot green tea, he sighs with hesitation to share what he considers common knowledge. But, for El this is a revelation.

"The Japanese will say they invented the fortune cookie. The Chinese, however, argue that a Chinese entrepreneur who immigrated to San Francisco invented it to promote local businesses in the early years of Chinatown."

"So, in a way," Daniel continues, "the fortune cookie was 'born' in San Francisco, and are seen by the Chinese as an American creation. What foreigners don't understand is the fortune cookies does not exist in China. Yet, many westerners, including Asian Americans, assume they are Asian because that is what a fortune cookie appears on the outside-- Asian! In reality, they are very much American...like you!" Daniel laughs.

Even after Daniel's laughter fades into a broken chortling of breaths, El remains silently stunned.

El picks up his fortune cookie sitting next to the check. "If I'm a fortune cookie, then what are you? You're the one who reads palms."

"Fortune cookies don't tell the future," Daniel replies, taking another sip of tea. He decides to leave his fortune cookie unopened. "But I can, El. You want me to read your palm?"

"Really?! I never had my palm read."

"Yeah? And, I never read the palm of a person as strange as you before," Daniel jokes, watching El remove the paper fortune from inside the cookie. "What does the fortune cookie tell you, El?"

El unfolds the small, rectangular strip that reveals three letters printed from the fading, cheap ink.

"It says...

'run.'"