Fortune Cookies
The blue tin sits there alone on the counter, pictures of buttery cookies and a serene Danish cookie factory stare back at you from the lid.
Growing up Chinese in Canada meant that we would get multiple tins of these Danish Butter Cookies from our relatives. We in turn re-gifted them to other relatives. One tin of cookies could make the rounds three times over until it left the circle of relatives into the outer circle of non-Asian friends. The one crime a Chinese kid could commit during the holidays was to actually open the tin and eat a cookie. The Sturm und Drang a Chinese mother could make was loud enough to scare a kid into butterphobia for the rest of his/her life. "AIYA!* NOW you did it! I was going to give that to your Auntie Liz!!" your mother would scream at you. She would then scrounge the house for anything unopened to wrap to give to your Aunt Liz. I think one year we had to wrap a bottle of Old Spice Aftershave because I opened the tin...and ate a cookie. My mother caught me in flagrante delicto , bug eyed in fear with crumbs on my quivering lips.
The cookies were dry and bland, yet they held a magical aura. They were the thread that went from one family to another, the cookies stacked neatly in their ruffled paper cups - they symbolized our extended family, and as long as we left the cookies untouched in the tin we were complete.
* Aiya: Chinese for "Oh for Lord's Sake" or "Jebezus!" or "Crimminy!"
Image: George Chong / My mother Josephine, sister Dinah and me. Winter Toronto
