by free2beme 28 Replies latest jw friends
We could eat them but not read the paper inside. Also at Chinese restaurants we had to turn the Zodiac menus over and sit our plates on the white part. Looking back on my childhood it seems so funny that we did that. The forign waitress coming over to a table of over dressed janitors with all the menus upside down on the table what must she have thought? makes me chuckle.
Renee
My jw used to eat and read the fortunes! Not anymore, won't even eat them. Not that get them that often but good grief! weirdo. Makes him look righteous I guess.
It's unusual for any JWs to be able to separate the cookie from the supposedly demonic message that goes with it, they can't do the same with Christmas presents for example. Strange psychology.
How's this for a selective memory? The first jw-instance I recall for fortune cookies was way back when I was growing up in CA. I must have been 8 or 9 at the time. I even remember the restaurant - Ho Brothers on 2nd St. and Main in El Cajon. We always went to this place for chinese. Anyways, when the cookies came, I cracked mine open and started to look at the small piece of paper. My mom immediately snatched it from me and crumpled it up into a ball along with hers. She told me that if I were to look at it, I would be inviting the demons into my head. From that point on, probably until I was in my 20's, I always did the same - I crumpled the "fortune" up without even reading it. When going out with other witnesses to eat chinese, I tried to make it as obvious as possible to exhibit my holier than thou attitude by not reading my "fortune."
I admit it, I was a dork.
Everything was OK at the Chinese establishments we dubs went to for an after meeting feeding frenzy. Unless... someone read the scrap of paper hanging out of the cookie. Then we could be said to be eating at the table of demonz.
I'm not sure of the local folks... I seem to remember reading them, but laughing at the 'fortunes'... they could be interpreted various ways.
Anyway... recently though, there is a fella here where I work who is a JW. A group of four fellas went to a Chinese restaurant, and he was one of 'em. When the 'fortune cookies' came around, he broke open his cookie, tossed the fortune, and gobbled down the cookie.
I felt like saying something like, "Ya know... even eating the cookie, acknowledges accepting the fortune - even tho' you didn't read it." but... he'd probably spit the dang cookie all over the table...
Everyone else ate their cookies, while contemplating the 'fortune' - as did I.
Regards,
Jim TX
Wow! As uptight and rightesous as my family was, we never had a problem with fortune cookies. We even visited a factory once while on vacation and devoured an entire bag of fresh, crispy cookies.
Some JW's I knew thought fortune cookies were evil like horoscopes. Some were uptight to the point of being superstitious about silly little things like this. It must have been "bad luck" to be seen eating a fortune cookie.
This is one of those things where many JW's would probably just go ahead and do it if they thought no other JW was looking. But in a large group of Witnesses, you gotta look righteous!
Wow
I have not heard or seen that before. We have always read the chinese zodiac and our fortune cookies passing them around the table to see what everyone else got. Thats crazy. My parents hosted quite a few out of town speakers and the Chinese Buffet was always an easy way to go. The only reason I have seen a brother or sister refuse a fortune cookie is if they didn't like the taste, but they would still open the cookie to read the fortune.
We had a Bible study about 1990, with a man, who had been raised a JW, but never did anything with it. About age 40, during a nasty divorce, he came to the local KH and asked for a study, so Dave and I studied with him and we became friends.
One time we all went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and when the fortune cookies came, we opened them and started to read the fortune. He was shocked and said "you aren't going to read that are you"? I was dumbstruck because I had never heard a thing about not reading the fortunes. We laughed it off and Dave said "I doubt you'll go to hell over it". He laughed too, but didn't read his.
He's an elder now. Wouldn't you know?
