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The Origins of the Chinese Fortune Cookie Started with a Japanese-American

I've seen Brian Kito do his mochi & manju stage demonstration for over a decade, each year at the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival; but usually I'm too busy at my own tables to pay close attention.

This year I was happy to be able to take a break and watch and film his demo. I was shocked to learn about the murky origins of the Chinese fortune cookie; and how that in all likelihood, it's a Japanese-American invention.

Sorry about the audio quality, but listen to Brian explain how the origin has been traced back to his grandfather.

http://www.fugetsu-do.com/history.htm

From Wikipedia:

Seiichi Kito, the founder of Fugetsu-do of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, also claims to have invented the cookie.[8] Kito claims to have gotten the idea of putting a message in a cookie from Omikuji (fortune slip) which are sold at temples and shrines in Japan. According to his story, he sold his cookies to Chinese restaurants where they were greeted with much enthusiasm in both the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Thus Kito's main claim is that he is responsible for the cookie being so strongly associated with Chinese restaurants.[citation needed]
Up to around World War II, fortune cookies were known as "fortune tea cakes"—likely reflecting their origins in Japanese tea cakes.[2]
Fortune cookies moved from being a confection dominated by Japanese-Americans to one dominated by Chinese-Americans sometime around World War II. One theory for why this occurred is because of the Japanese American internment during World War II, which forcibly put over 100,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps, including those who had produced fortune cookies. This gave an opportunity for Chinese manufacturers.

14 years of service!

Today marks the 14th year anniversary of this blog, down to the minute.  I think it's one of the first origami blogs that opened for business; certainly one of the longest lasting ones.   A conservative talk radio host, Hugh Hewitt, was the one who got me into the idea of blogging, in 2004.  Back then, there weren't a great deal of origami content on the internet.  Not like it is today.  Back then, it was easy to go visit known websites, blogs, and photo galleries and not be overwhelmed.  Today, there is so much content out there, there is simply no way I could look at everything.  It's the same with books and folding models- just too much out there and not enough hours in the day, let alone energy and enthusiasm to make it happen.

I've gone through phases where this blog wasn't a priority; although the Sunday Funnies are automatically scheduled to publish and is lined up all the way into 2023, at the moment.  Very few repeat cartoons, too.

I know the look and platform this blog operates on is dated; but it's free; and it'd be a big headache to try and move almost 1400 blogposts in the archives over to a newer platform.  I'm grateful to Blogspot.com for having remained in business for so long.

I think I have the most extensive sidebar link of blogs, websites, photo albums, and services than any other origami-related site.  There are a number of blogs linked that are no longer functioning.  I haven't removed them because they're a way for me to remember that they once existed.  I wish people wouldn't delete their old blogs but leave them up as archived history.  Amidst all the junk, and internet clutter there's also been some great content out there.

Check out my first blog post.

How Origami is Inspiring Scientific Creativity

60 Years, The Thousand Cranes Movement

Hat tip, Origami and You:

“They called us the ‘ragged class,'” recalls Tomiko Kawano of her sixth-grade group at Noboricho Elementary School in Hiroshima. “Half our class had lost family in the atomic bombing or were survivors themselves.”
Among them was Sadako Sasaki, the now-famous little girl who developed acute leukemia 10 years after being exposed to radiation during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Inspired by the age-old Japanese belief that anyone who makes 1,000 origami cranes will see their wish come true, Sadako spent her last days folding paper cranes on her hospital bed in the hope she would recover.
Less known are Sadako’s friends and classmates who, at Sadako’s wake in 1955, swore an oath before her cremated remains that they would build a monument in her honor. Their efforts sparked a children’s peace movement and fundraising campaign that swept through Japan and transformed the origami crane into an international symbol of peace. The Children’s Peace Monument in the center of Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park — the culmination of their efforts — celebrated its 60th anniversary this year.

Read more

The paper tsuru found to be at least a century older

The Asahi Shimbun, via Robert Lang on the Origami-L:

An illustration on a “kozuka” sword accessory has been confirmed as the earliest drawing of origami cranes. (Provided by Yuhiko Nakanishi)

Three origami cranes shown on a samurai sword accessory created around the beginning of the 17th century revealed the classic “orizuru” folding-paper design was invented a century earlier than previously believed.

The accessory, known as “kozuka,” was attached to blade sheaths or used as the hilt for short swords.

Yuhiko Nakanishi, a director of nonprofit group Nihon Token Hozon Kai (Japan sword preservation association), who lives in Tokyo’s Ota Ward, obtained the kozuka from a collector several years ago.

Measuring 1.4 centimeters by 9.7 cm, the kozuka features drawings of three orizuru and a pine tree.

Nakanishi examined the kozuka and found that it was crafted by Goto Eijo (1577-1617), the sixth head of the Goto family that catered to the Ashikaga Shogunate.

Eijo is famed for working for warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598). The carving on the accessory was characteristic of Eijo’s work.

A gold processing method that was no longer used in the Edo Period (1603-1867) was confirmed to have produced the item.

Based on those facts, the kozuka is estimated to have been made between the late Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568-1600) and the earliest part of the Edo Period.

An orizuru illustration in a design book for dyed goods published around 1700 was previously believed to be the oldest drawing of a paper crane.

Masao Okamura, who studies the history of origami, said the latest finding could help reveal the history of orizuru.

“The posterior half of the depicted orizuru seen from their side was drawn in a wrong way,” said Okamura, who lives in Kunitachi in western Tokyo. “That indicates the illustration was drawn before the method of folding paper (into orizuru) spread widely among people.”

Origami was established during the Muromachi Period (1338-1573) as a method for samurai to show good manners by wrapping their gifts with folded paper.

Traditional “washi” paper of the time was basically rectangular. People could not create origami works without accurately learning how to fold based on the horizontal to vertical ratio of the paper determined by each school of samurai manners.

After the start of the Edo Period, origami became popular in urban areas, particularly among women.

Orizuru was high on the list of preferred origami apparently because it can be created easily with square washi without learning how to fold in detail.

“(The latest finding) indicates orizuru was invented by men in the samurai community as part of their manners,” Okamura said.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Clifton Truman Daniel, the grandson of President Harry S. Truman who gave the order for the dropping of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man", referencing the story of Sadako:

Truman’s Grandson & Japan’s A-Bomb Survivors: A Story of Reconciliation

As the generation that survived the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki begins to pass, the grandson of President Truman works to end the threat of nuclear weapons.

In June of 2012, I was driving home from taking my son, Gates, to high school when, contrary to common sense and Chicago ordinance, I decided to check the messages on my cellphone. There was only one. Someone with a lovely soprano voice was singing me “Happy Birthday.”
It turned out to be Shigeko Sasamori, who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, an attack ordered by my grandfather, Harry S. Truman.

I had met Shigeko only a couple of weeks earlier, in New York. She was there working with Hibakusha Stories, a United Nations-affiliated NGO that, as of this date, has brought atomic bomb survivors to share their experiences with more than 25,000 New York Metro-area high school students.

Needless to say, I never expected to know a survivor of Hiroshima, let alone have her sing me “Happy Birthday.” My grandfather never spoke to me about the atomic bombings. I learned about them like everyone else, from history books. Aside from casualty figures, the books told me very little about what happened to the people.

In 1999, when my older son, Wesley, was in fifth grade, he brought home a copy of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. The book is based on the life of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl in Hiroshima sickened by radiation. She followed a Japanese tradition that says if you fold 1,000 origami paper cranes, you are granted a wish. Sadako’s wish was to live. Sadly, though she folded more than 1,000 cranes, she died of leukemia on October 25, 1955. There’s a memorial to her and all children killed or wounded by the bomb in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park.

70 Years Ago Today

The Blind Origamist

Japanology 28th : Origami [2] by abricot5725


Hat tip:  BOS

Lecture 5: Artistic Origami Design

Paper Glider Machine Gun

Hat tip:  Joe Power via Origami-L

Jesus Diaz:

This German genius has created one of the most awesome inventions in recent memory, one that will bring incredible voice to humanity: A fully automated paper airplane machine gun. Yes, people: A machine gun that folds plain paper sheets into airplanes and then fire them across the sky.

History of paper gliders:

History of the 5 Pigs Puzzle

The first time I saw this (and another related one) was at my first OUSA convention.  It might have been Cyril Tessier who had them to give out.  I still have them somewhere.


Puzzle of the Five Pigs

History behind it, according to psywarrior.com:

For many years prior to WWII various venders made and sold puzzles to children.  These puzzles had a number of different pictures on the front, and when folded in a special complex way depicted a hidden picture of an old man, or sometimes a political laeder, sports figure or movie star.

Pig Puzzle

During WWII the British Special Operations executive is believed to have produced a number of different puzzles showing four pigs on the front, that when folded depicted the face of Adolf Hitler.  At least four types of the pig puzzle are known, and it is believed that besides being used in Allied countries as a morale booster, they were also shipped to partisans in Nazi-occupied nations to attack and belittle the German Fuhrer.

One type with English text says, "Fold as directed to find the biggest pig of all."  Another English-language puzzle says, "Puzzle of the pig.  Here is the puzzle of the fifth pig.  To find a fifth one fold as directed."  A third puzzle is found in both French and English and was also distributed in Australia.  

~~~

Apparently, many of these puzzles were also dropped by the Royal Air Force.  In 2008, I received a letter that stated:

My father came to Canada from the Netherlands in the 1950s.  When he was a young man in Holland during the war he collected different things.  He has a paper he said they threw out of an airplane.  It is written in Dutch and English.  "Can you find the 5th pig." There are four pigs on the picture, and when folded right the four pigs together make a face that resembles Hitler.

Some more people mentioning inheriting one of these from a grandparent.

If anyone has anymore information on the background and history of this and related, let me know.

January WCOG meeting

Jim Cowling

Light turnout at yesterday's WCOG.  We took down the Christmas tree decorations from the library tree.  Did a simple tetraflexagon.  Jim wanted to go over the Montroll horse; and I had him and Helen film my method of shaping the head and hooves (if John gives me permission to share, I will post the video up).

I also brought up Jesse Barr's golf bag with clubs out of a dollar, and Jim whipped one up in about two minutes, how he perceives the model to be engineered.

Mike Jittlov dropped in.  He showed off his version of a $cottie and a unicorn. 

Photos of Sunday's meeting here.






A short history...

More on the Polypopagon

Have polypopagon, will travel and entertain everywhere I go:






I often stop at this eatery in Marukai, which is along my route between home and my trip to Marti's or Carol's house; and also very close to Joe Hamamoto's (where I swung by to visit after Marti's 1st Sunday gathering today).
 
Boaz Shuval sent me a link to directions for the polypopagon (pop-up polyhedron on pg 36).

Related links of interest:

Pop-up Polyhedra
Polyhedra Pastimes

I have something like this Pop-up calendar that I bought from Bed, Bath, & Beyond years ago.  Here's a picture of it.  (And it does use rubberbands).