Fortune Cookie Emoji

🥠 is a fortune cookie cracked open with a paper slip inside. It stands for luck, predictions, wisdom, and one of the food world's biggest cultural mix-ups: fortune cookies are not Chinese. Approved in Unicode 10.0 (2017), the design across vendors shows the broken half-shell with the paper fortune sticking out.

The leading origin story points to Makoto Hagiwara, caretaker of the Japanese Tea Garden) in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, who reportedly began serving them around 1914. He adapted Japan's tsujiura senbei, a darker, sesame-and-miso wafer with a fortune wedged into the fold rather than placed inside the hollow. Researcher Yasuko Nakamachi spent six years digging through Japan's National Diet Library and traced the cracker back to the Hyotanyama Inari shrine outside Kyoto, even finding an 1878 illustration that depicts something nearly identical to today's cookie.

The shift from Japanese-American to Chinese-American ownership happened during WWII. When over 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly sent to internment camps, Chinese-American restaurateurs took over production and rebranded the format. American diners came to expect a fortune cookie with the bill, and Chinese restaurants delivered. When Wonton Food Inc. tried to sell them in China in 1992, they gave up, the product was considered "too American."

On social media, 🥠 lives in three lanes: prediction posts ("my fortune said this and it came true"), wisdom-quote captions, and the eternal "in bed" joke that turns any fortune into an innuendo. TikTok's #fortunecookie tag is dominated by reaction videos to bizarre fortunes, kids cracking them open at family dinners, and the occasional manufacturing-process clip that pulls millions of views. The "not actually Chinese" trivia bomb is one of the most-shared facts on food-history corners of the internet, it has resurfaced as a viral post on Reddit's r/todayilearned at least a dozen times.

In texting, the emoji is almost always lighthearted. It's used for fortune-telling humor, lottery talk (especially after the 2005 Powerball incident), and as a soft prelude to predictions of any kind. Couples sometimes use it the way others use 🔮, "my 🥠 says you owe me a back rub." It plays well with 🥡, 🥢, and 🍀, and it shows up in the closing emoji of many takeout-order group chats as the universal sign for "meal complete."

There are three competing inventor claims, all from California, none from China. The most credible is Makoto Hagiwara, the Japanese gardener and tea-garden caretaker who served the cookies at his Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco from around 1914. The format he used was clearly adapted from Japan's tsujiura senbei, which had been documented as far back as an 1878 illustration discovered by researcher Yasuko Nakamachi.

A competing claim came from David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles, who said he invented the cookie in 1918 to give encouraging messages to unemployed men on the street. The dispute simmered for decades until 1983, when San Francisco's Court of Historical Review, a mock-court that decides historical curiosities, convened a trial under Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Hanlon. Hanlon ruled in favor of San Francisco. Los Angeles formally condemned the verdict.

The Chinese-restaurant association is a 20th-century rebrand. During WWII, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated to internment camps and Japanese-owned bakeries shut down. Chinese-American manufacturers picked up production and Chinese restaurants began handing them out with the check. By 1950, the format was so deeply tied to Chinese restaurants that most diners assumed it had been Chinese all along.

1. 1878An illustration in the Japanese storybook Moshiogusa Kinsei Kidan depicts a cracker nearly identical to the modern fortune cookie, the earliest known visual record.↗
2. 1914Makoto Hagiwara reportedly begins serving cookies adapted from tsujiura senbei at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.↗
3. 1918David Jung of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles claims to have invented the cookie for unemployed men on the city's streets.↗
4. 1942WWII Japanese internment removes Japanese-American bakeries from production. Chinese-American manufacturers take over and the cookie becomes associated with Chinese restaurants.↗
5. 1983San Francisco's Court of Historical Review rules in favor of SF as the cookie's birthplace, in a nationally-covered mock trial. Los Angeles condemns the decision.↗
6. 1992Wonton Food Inc. tries to sell fortune cookies in China and gives up. The product is rejected as 'too American.'↗
7. 2005Powerball investigators flag suspicious activity when 110 people win secondary prizes with the same numbers, all from the same Wonton Food fortune cookie batch.↗
8. 2008Yasuko Nakamachi publishes her thesis tracing the cookie back to the Hyotanyama Inari shrine outside Kyoto, settling the Japan-vs-California debate on origin.↗
9. 2017Unicode 10.0 / Emoji 5.0 approves 🥠 Fortune Cookie at codepoint U+1F960.↗

• •Fortune cookies are virtually unknown in China. They were invented in California, most likely by Makoto Hagiwara in San Francisco around 1914. When Wonton Food Inc. tried to sell them in China in 1992, they gave up, the product was considered 'too American.'
• •About 3 billion fortune cookies are produced annually, mostly for US consumption. The largest manufacturer, Wonton Food Inc. in Brooklyn, makes over 4.5 million per day.
• •On March 30, 2005, 110 people won the Powerball secondary prize using the same numbers (22, 28, 32, 33, 39). Powerball officials suspected fraud until investigators traced every winner back to the same batch of Wonton Food fortune cookies.
• •In 1983, San Francisco's Court of Historical Review held a mock trial to settle the Hagiwara vs Jung dispute and ruled SF as the cookie's true birthplace. Los Angeles formally condemned the decision.
• •The Japanese original, tsujiura senbei, is larger, darker, and made with sesame and miso instead of vanilla and butter. The fortune is wedged into the fold of the cracker, not placed inside.
• •Researcher Yasuko Nakamachi spent six years at Japan's National Diet Library tracing the cookie back to the Hyotanyama Inari shrine outside Kyoto. She found an 1878 illustration that matches the modern cookie.
• •Fortune cookies became Chinese-restaurant fixtures during WWII Japanese internment, when Japanese-American bakeries were shut down and Chinese-American manufacturers took over.
• •The classic "in bed" joke, appending those two words to any fortune for instant innuendo, has been a Chinese-restaurant tradition for decades. National Fortune Cookie Day is July 20.
• •Ching Sun Wong founded Wonton Food in a Brooklyn basement in 1973 with a noodle operation. The company now writes about 50,000 different fortune-cookie messages and ships to all 50 states.

• •The 2005 Powerball 110-winner story was covered by every major US news outlet and is still cited in trivia rounds and lottery features two decades later.
• •Amy Tan's writing on the cultural mythology of the fortune cookie is part of why the 'not actually Chinese' fact has become a staple of food-history conversations in the US.
• •Pixar's 2010 short Day & Night and countless sitcoms (Friends, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family) have used the cookie-cracking moment as a quick narrative device for revelation or comic timing.
• •National Fortune Cookie Day is celebrated on July 20 in the US, with brand activations from Wonton Food and viral 'fortune of the day' threads on X.

• •Codepoint U+1F960, no skin-tone or gender variants.
• •Released in Unicode 10.0 / Emoji 5.0 (2017). Renders cleanly on iOS 11.1+, Android 8.0+, Windows 10 Creators Update and later.
• •Most vendors draw the cookie cracked in half with the paper sticking out. Apple's design shows a more golden brown shell; Google's is paler with a clearer paper slip.

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