外刊閱讀day 133， 文章來自2008年1月16日《紐約時報》。
上禮拜我們有一篇文章講了為什麼美國的中餐館越來越少（點這裡複習），去過美國中餐館的同學都知道，一般這些中餐館都會有幸運餅乾（fortune cookies），就是一個三角形的餅乾中被塞進寫著幸運籤的紙條，或祝福，或警告。
幸運餅乾可能是所有美國人對於中餐的最佳回憶：它是中國傳統智慧的結晶，不僅餅皮輕巧好吃，裡面的籤紙還寫有孔子的至理名言，能夠帶來人生啟迪和意想不到的好運氣。
可是對於那些去中國旅遊的美國遊客來說，讓他們困惑的是中國竟然沒有幸運餅乾。
今天這篇文章就向我們講述了研究員中町泰子探究幸運餅乾究竟源於何處的全過程，並提出中餐廳出現幸運餅乾的可能性。快來跟著小編一起揭開幸運餅乾的身世之謎吧~
【文章難度】⭐⭐⭐ （1788 words）
風靡美國中餐館，幸運餅乾的身世之謎
Solving a Riddle Wrapped
in a Mystery Inside a Cookie
Some 3 billion fortune cookies are made each year, almost all in the United States. But the crisp cookies wrapped around enigmatic sayings have spread around the world. They are served in Chinese restaurants in Britain, Mexico, Italy, France and elsewhere. In India, they taste more like butter cookies. A surprisingly high number of winning tickets in Brazil's national lottery in 2004 were traced to lucky numbers from fortune cookies distributed by a Chinese restaurant chain called Chinatown.But there is one place where fortune cookies are conspicuously absent: China.
全世界每年要生產大約30億個幸運餅乾，幾乎全部是在美國生產的。但這些包裹著高深莫測的格言的酥脆餅乾擴散到了全球。它們的身影出現在了英國、墨西哥、義大利、法國和其他地方的中餐館裡。在印度，它們吃起來更像黃油餅乾。2004年，巴西國家彩票的中獎數字中，相當一部分來自中餐館連鎖品牌唐人街(Chinatown)分銷的幸運餅乾中的幸運數字，比例高得驚人。但有一個地方明顯沒有幸運餅乾的身影：中國。
🌟enigmatic [adj.]神秘的；謎一樣的；費解的。
說起這個詞語，小編就想起了達文西著名的油畫《蒙娜麗莎》（Mona Lisa），她神秘的微笑（enigmatic smile）讓無數人著迷。當然，由於《蒙娜麗莎》的背景始終未曾被世人揭開（人物的身份、畫作的委託、繪製的時間等未被證實），也使它成為了一幅令人費解的藝術作品（an enigmatic art）。
以後我們就可以使用enigmatic來代替mysterious（神秘的，難以理解的）。
Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly originally from Japan.
中國沒有幸運餅乾這一點長期困擾著去中國旅遊的美國遊客。如今，日本的一名研究人員認為她能夠解釋這個現象。名叫中町泰子(Yasuko Nakamachi)的這位研究人員稱，幸運餅乾幾乎肯定發源於日本。
🌟perplex【寫作用詞】
(vt.) 使困惑，使茫然；
它的同義詞有很多，如：puzzle, befuddle, bewilder, perturb等。
▷ 常用詞組：
be perplexed by/at sth. = be puzzled about sth. = be perturbed by sth.= feel confused about 因...而感到困惑
Her prime pieces of evidence are the generations-old small family bakeries making obscure fortune cookie-shaped crackers by hand near a temple outside Kyoto. She has also turned up many references to the cookies in Japanese literature and history, including an 1878 image of a man making them in a bakery - decades before the first reports of American fortune cookies.
她的首要證據，是京都郊區一座寺廟附近的小型家庭式烘焙屋。那些地方世代傳承，它們用手工製作的爆脆餅乾形狀與幸運餅乾類似，但卻鮮為人知。她還指出了日本文學和歷史中多處提到這些餅乾的地方，其中包括1878年的一幅畫，畫中一名男子正在一家烘焙屋裡做這種餅乾。那幅畫比首次出現有關美國幸運餅乾的報導早了數十年。
🌟cracker 【口語用詞】
(n.)和我們平常吃的cookies (美)/biscuits (英)不同，cracker表示那種鹹的薄脆餅乾，通常和cheese一起搭配食用，如下圖這些：
在澳州或紐西蘭，口語中常用not worth a cracker來表示「一文不值；毫無用處」。《雪梨先驅晨報》刊登的一則「5分錢是否應該退出硬幣革新」的新聞報導，標題就用的這個短語。
英式英語中，如果稱讚「（某人）很出類拔萃」，可以說「She/he is a cracker」。
中文的「煙花爆竹」，除了用「firework」來表示，也可以用「firecracker」。
The idea that fortune cookies come from Japan is counterintuitive, to say the least. "I am surprised," said Derrick Wong, the vice president of the largest fortune cookie manufacturer in the world, Wonton Food, based in Brooklyn. 「People see it and think of it as a Chinese food dessert, not a Japanese food dessert,」 he said. But, he conceded, 「The weakest part of the Chinese menu is dessert.」
認為幸運餅乾發源於日本的觀點，至少是和直覺不符的。「我很吃驚，」布魯克林的全球最大幸運餅乾生產商雲吞食品公司(Wonton Food)副總裁德裡克·黃(Derrick Wong)說。「人們看到它，就會認為它是中餐裡的甜點，」他說。不過他承認，「中餐最薄弱的地方就是甜點。」
🌟 concede 【寫作用詞】
(vt.) 承認（事實）/（某種觀點）
▷ 雅思寫作中，我們常用一些動詞來表達我們的觀點，如：
sb. argue that.../believe that.../maintain that.../hold that.../insist that.../claim that.../point out...
sb. acknowledge/concede that...
▷ 例句1：I have to acknowledge that it has the advantage of high efficiency.
▷ 例句2：Each of them conceded the point that the present system was unfair.
sb. consider…(to be)
▷ 例句：Some people favor abortion rights, and others consider abortion to be murder.
be of the opinion that...
▷ 例句：I am of the opinion that car ownership should be discouraged.
from a personal point of view, ...
▷ 例句：From a personal point of view, it is essential to reduce non-essential travel.
Ms. Nakamachi, a folklore and history graduate student at Kanagawa University outside Tokyo, has spent more than six years trying to establish the Japanese origin of the fortune cookie, much of that at National Diet Library (the Japanese equivalent of the Library of Congress). She has sifted through thousands of old documents and drawings. She has also traveled to temples and shrines across the country, conducting interviews to piece together the history of fortune-telling within Japanese desserts.
中町泰子是東京郊區神奈川大學(Kanagawa University)歷史民俗資料學研究生。她用了六年多時間，試圖明確日本是幸運餅乾的發源地，其中大量工作是在國立國會圖書館(National Diet Library)裡進行的。她仔細查閱了成千上萬份古老的文件和圖畫，還前往日本各地的寺廟和神社進行採訪，對日式甜點用於佔卜的歷史進行了梳理。
🌟sift through sth. 仔細審核某物（文件或證據等）；翻找，仔細搜尋
sift作為及物動詞，本義有「篩」的意思，如：sift icing sugar/sand/flour 篩糖粉/沙子/麵粉；原文用的其引申義「細查，詳審」。
▷ 如：sift through ancient books整理古籍
sift through the rubble searching for survivors 清理瓦礫尋找倖存者
Ms. Nakamachi, who has long had an interest in the history of sweets and snacks, saw her first fortune cookie in the 1980s in a New York City Chinese restaurant. At that time she was merely impressed with Chinese ingenuity, finding the cookies an amusing and clever idea.
中町泰子長期對甜點和小吃的歷史感興趣。上世紀80年代，她在紐約市的一家中餐館裡第一次見到幸運餅乾。當時，她只是被中國人的心靈手巧所打動，認為那些餅乾是一個有趣、聰明的主意。
🌟ingenuity [n.] 足智多謀
▷ 可與wit, wisdom, resourcefulness, talent, intelligence, brilliance互換。表示「做某事足智多謀」，可以說「ingenuity in doing sth.」
例句：They applauded the minister’s ingenuity in avoiding tax rises.
It was only in the late 1990s, outside Kyoto near one of the most popular Shinto shrines in Japan, that she saw that familiar shape at a family bakery called Sohonke Hogyokudo.
直到90年代末，在京都郊區一座日本香火最旺的神社附近，她才在一家叫寶玉堂(Hogyokudo)的家族經營烘焙屋裡再次看到那種熟悉的形狀。
「These were exactly like fortune cookies,」 she said. 「They were shaped exactly the same and there were fortunes.」
「它們和幸運餅乾完全一樣，」她說。「形狀完全一樣，也有幸運紙條。」
The cookies were made by hand by a young man who held black grills over a flame. The grills contain round molds into which batter is poured, something like a small waffle iron. Little pieces of paper were folded into the cookies while they were still warm. With that sighting, Ms. Nakamachi’s long research mission began.
那些餅乾是一名年輕男子手工製作的。他把黑色的烤架置於火上。架上放著圓形的模具，就像小型的華夫餅模具一樣，裡面倒入麵糊。在餅乾尚處於溫熱狀態時，把小紙片折起來放進餅乾裡。看到這一幕後，中町泰子開始了她漫長的研究。
A visit to the Hogyokudo shop revealed that the Japanese fortune cookies Ms. Nakamachi found there and at a handful of nearby bakers differ in some ways from the ones that Americans receive at the end of a meal with the check and a handful of orange wedges. They are bigger and browner, as their batter contains sesame and miso rather than vanilla and butter. The fortunes are not stuffed inside, but are pinched in the cookie’s fold. (Think of the cookie as a Pac-Man: the paper is tucked into Pac-Man’s mouth rather than inside his body.) Still, the family resemblance is undeniable.
中町泰子在寶玉堂及附近一些烘焙屋發現的日本幸運餅乾和美國人在餐後隨帳單及幾片橙子一起呈上來的幸運餅乾有所不同。日本的幸運餅乾更大，顏色是更深的棕色，餡料中含有芝麻和味噌，而不是香草和黃油。幸運籤語不是塞在裡面的，而是被捏在褶縫裡的（如果把餅乾想像成吃豆人，幸運紙條就是叼在吃豆人嘴巴裡的，而不是塞在它肚子裡）。但是它們的血緣關係無可否認。
🌟resemblance 【寫作用詞】
(n.) = similarity 表示「相似，類似」
我們常常會說「某人和某人長得很像」，可以這樣說：
There is a remarkable resemblance / similarity in appearance between him and his father.
He bears a striking resemblance in appearance to his father.
He is so like his father .
He looks like his father.
He looks similar to his father.
He is the mirror image of his father.
「People don’t realize this is the real thing because American fortune cookies are popular right now,」 said Takeshi Matsuhisa as he deftly folded the hot wafers into the familiar curved shape.
「美國幸運餅乾太流行了，所以人們已經不認識真貨了，」 松久剛(Takeshi Matsuhisa)一邊說，一邊嫻熟地把熱騰騰的餅疊成我們熟悉的彎曲形狀。
His family has owned the bakery for three generations, although the local tradition of making the cookies predates their store. Decades ago, many confectioneries and candies came with little fortunes inside, Mr. Matsuhisa said.
這家烘焙屋已經在他家傳了三代人，不過當地製作幸運餅乾的傳統還要早於他家的店鋪。幾十年前，很多甜食和糖果裡都開始放入幸運籤語，松久剛先生說。
「Then, the companies realized it wasn’t such a good idea to put pieces of paper in candy, so then they all disappeared,」 he added. The fear that people would accidentally eat the fortune is one reason his family now puts the paper outside the cookie.
「後來，許多公司意識到，在糖果裡放籤語不是好主意，於是它們都關門了，」他補充說。他家之所以把籤語放在餅乾外面，擔心人們不小心把籤語吃下去是原因之一。
The bakery has used the same 23 fortunes for decades. (In contrast, Wonton Food has a database of well over 10,000 fortunes.) Hogyokudo’s fortunes are more poetic than prophetic, although some nearby bakeries use newer fortunes that give advice or make predictions. One from Inariya, a shop across from the Shinto shrine, contains the advice, 「To ward off lower back pain or joint problems, undertake some at-home measures like yoga.」
幾十年來，這家烘焙屋一直使用同樣的23種籤語（相反，Wonton Food食品公司有一個資料庫，裡面有一萬多種籤語）。寶玉堂的幸運籤語更像詩歌，而不是預言，儘管附近有些烘焙屋使用更新的籤語，向顧客給出建議或做出預言。在正對著神社的稻荷屋(Inariya)店內，一張籤語上寫著這樣的建議：「為防止腰背疼痛和關節問題，在家裡做些瑜伽之類鍛鍊。」
🌟ward off
避免，防止（不良或有害事物）
比如「避開災難」= ward off a calamity；「避免衝突」= ward off a collision with sb.；「避開危險」= ward off the danger；「預防疾病」= ward off disease
▷ 政府報告中，我們常見的「防洪救災」，可以表達為control the flood and ward off disaster
As she researched the cookie’s Japanese origins, among the most persuasive pieces of evidence Ms. Nakamachi found was an illustration from a 19th-century book of stories, 「Moshiogusa Kinsei Kidan.」
中町泰子在研究幸運餅乾源自日本的過程中發現，在眾多頗有說服力的證據之中，一幅來自19世紀的故事書《藻汐草近世奇談》(Moshiogusa Kinsei Kidan)裡的插圖格外重要。
A character in one of the tales is an apprentice in a senbei store. In Japan, the cookies are called, variously, tsujiura senbei (「fortune crackers」), omikuji senbei (「written fortune crackers」), and suzu senbei (「bell crackers」).
在其中一個故事裡，有個人物在煎餅店做學徒——在日本，幸運餅乾也叫做「辻佔煎餅」(tsujiura senbei)、「御籤煎餅」(omikuji senbei )或「鈴鐺煎餅」(bell crackers)。
The apprentice appears to be grilling wafers in black irons over coals, the same way they are made in Hogyokudo and other present-day bakeries. A sign above him reads 「tsujiura senbei」 and next to him are tubs filled with little round shapes — the tsujiura senbei themselves.
圖中，這個學徒顯然在用黑色的烤架在煤火上烤煎餅，如今，寶玉堂和不少烘焙屋依舊是這樣做煎餅的。圖中寫著「辻佔煎餅」字樣，他旁邊有很多盆子，裝滿了圓圓的東西——正是大堆的辻佔煎餅。
The book, story and illustration are all dated 1878. The families of Japanese or Chinese immigrants in California that claim to have invented or popularized fortune cookies all date the cookie’s appearance between 1907 and 1914.
這本書、這個故事和這幅插圖都來自1878年。無論是聲稱自己發明或推廣了幸運餅乾的日本家族或中國到加利福尼亞的移民，都說這種餅乾是在1907年到1914年出現的。
🌟immigrant vs emigrant vs migrant
這三個詞是不是經常傻傻分不清楚？
要說他們之間的差別，先從他們的拉丁詞根migrare說起，migrare指從一個地方搬到另一個地方 (「to move from one place to another」)，它是英語單詞migrant的來源，而migrant 在韋氏詞典上的釋義為「one that migrates」,即移居者，如「流動的工人」或是「遷徙的動物」。
▷ im-前綴，等於「in-」，表示「進入」，所以immigrant就是「a person who has moved to another country, usually for permanent residence」
▷ e-前綴，等於「out of」，表示「出」，所以emigrant就是「someone who leaves a country or region」
因此，immigrant和emigrant的主要區別在於方向不同，immigrant指從外國遷入的移民；而emigrant指從本國遷出的移民。
The illustration was the kind of needle in a haystack discovery academics yearn for. 「It’s very rare to see artwork of a thing being made,」 Ms. Nakamachi said. 「You just don’t see that.」
這幅圖如同大海撈針，是學術界非常渴望的發現。「關於物品製作過程的藝術品非常罕見，」中町泰子說。「根本就看不到這樣的東西。」
🌟 a needle in a haystack 大海撈針
比如我想表達「想在地板上找隱形眼鏡如同大海撈針」，就可以說：Trying to find my contact lens on the floor was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
🌟yearn for sth. 渴望得到某物 如果要說「渴望做某事，嚮往做某事」，可以說「yearn to do sth.」
▷ 例句1：He yearned for freedom. 他渴望自由。
▷ 例句2：I yearned to be a movie actor. 我曾渴望成為一名演員。
更多同義句型可以參考8月26日推送的「crave」一詞。點這裡複習🏄🏻♀️
She found other historical traces of the cookies as well. In a work of fiction by Tamenaga Shunsui, who lived between 1790 and 1843, a woman tries to placate two other women with tsujiura senbei that contain fortunes.
她還發現了幸運餅乾的其他歷史蹤跡，為永春水(Tamenaga Shunsui)是一位生活在1790年到1843年的小說家，在他的一篇小說中，有一個女子試圖用帶有幸運籤語的辻佔煎餅來安撫另外兩個女人。
Ms. Nakamachi’s work, originally published in 2004 as part of a Kanagawa University report, has been picked up by some publications in Japan. A few customers have bought senbei from Hogyokudo, the Matsuhisa family said. But otherwise, the paper has drawn limited attention, perhaps because fortune cookies are not well known in Japan.
中町泰子的作品最初於2004年發表在神奈川大學(Kanagawa University)的一份學報上，後來又被日本的一些媒體轉載。総本家族說，確實有些顧客開始來寶玉堂買煎餅了。但是這份論文獲得的關注相當有限，或許是因為幸運餅乾在日本沒那麼有名。
If fortune cookies are Japanese in origin, how did they become a mainstay of American Chinese restaurants? To understand this, Ms. Nakamachi has made two trips to the United States, focusing on San Francisco and Los Angeles, where she interviewed the descendants of Japanese and Chinese immigrant families who made fortune cookies.
如果幸運餅乾的確起源於日本，那麼它又是怎麼成了美國中餐館的保留項目呢？為了弄清楚這一點，中町泰子兩次訪問美國，主要是在舊金山和洛杉磯，她採訪了不少製作幸運餅乾的日本和中國家族的後裔。
🌟mainstay (n.) 中堅，支柱;
想表示「米是我國的主食」，除了說「Rice is the staple food of our country」，還可以說「Rice is the mainstay of our country.」
公司領導經常會稱讚年輕人，「是公司的骨幹力量」，可以表示為「Young people are the mainstay of our company.」
The cookie’s path is relatively easy to trace back to World War II. At that time they were a regional specialty, served in California Chinese restaurants, where they were known as 「fortune tea cakes.」 There, according to later interviews with fortune cookie makers, they were encountered by military personnel on the way back from the Pacific Theater. When these veterans returned home, they would ask their local Chinese restaurants why they didn’t serve fortune cookies as the San Francisco restaurants did.
幸運餅乾之路可以輕鬆追溯到「二戰」期間。當時它們是一種地區特產，專在加利福尼亞的中餐館裡出售，名叫「幸運茶點」。根據後來對幸運餅乾的生產者的採訪，當時從太平洋劇院(Pacific Theater)回來的軍人偶然遇到了這些點心。這些老兵們回到老家後，就問家鄉的中國餐館有沒有舊金山中餐館的這種幸運餅乾。
The cookies rapidly spread across the country. By the late 1950s, an estimated 250 million fortune cookies were being produced each year by dozens of small Chinese bakeries and fortune cookie companies. One of the larger outfits was Lotus Fortune in San Francisco, whose founder, Edward Louie, invented an automatic fortune cookie machine. By 1960, fortune cookies had become such a mainstay of American culture that they were used in two presidential campaigns: Adlai Stevenson’s and Stuart Symington’s.
這種餅乾迅速蔓延到全國。到20世紀50年代末期，全國幾十家小型中國糕點和幸運餅乾生產公司大約每年生產2.5億個幸運餅乾。其中一家較大的是舊金山的蓮花幸運餅乾廠(Lotus Fortune)，它的創始人愛德華·路易(Edward Louie)發明了幸運餅乾自動生產機。到1960年，幸運餅乾已經是美國文化的保留節目，在阿德萊·史蒂文森(Adlai Stevenson)和斯圖爾特·塞明頓(Stuart Symington)的總統競選活動中都曾登場。
But prior to World War II, the history is murky. A number of immigrant families in California, mostly Japanese, have laid claim to introducing or popularizing the fortune cookie. Among them are the descendants of Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant who oversaw the Japanese Tea Garden built in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in the 1890s. Visitors to the garden were served fortune cookies made by a San Francisco bakery, Benkyodo.
但幸運餅乾在「二戰」之前的歷史是模糊的。若干加利福尼亞移民家庭，主要是日本人，聲稱是他們發明或推廣了幸運餅乾，其中就包括萩原真(Makoto Hagiwara)的後裔。日本移民萩原真於19世紀90年代在舊金山金門公園內負責建造了日本茶園(Japanese Tea Garden)，這座茶園的賓客會得到由舊金山的烘焙屋勉強堂(Benkyodo)製作的幸運餅乾。
🌟lay claim to 表示「堅持對...所有權」
如近期熱議的中國南海主權爭端，「中國聲稱對南海諸島擁有主權」，可表示為「China lays claim to South China Sea.」
claim還有「索賠」的意思，如「提出保險/貿易索賠」，可以說make a claim on insurance/trade；「letter of claim」可表示「索賠函」。
「claim to fame」表示「成名之舉」，比如想說「小鎮成名的原因是因為總統出生於此」，可以說「This little town's claim to fame is that the president was born here.」
想表示「某人最出名的是寫了一手好字」，可以說「His/Her greatest claim to fame is that he/she had a beautiful handwriting.」
A few Los Angeles-based businesses also made fortune cookies in the same era: Fugetsudo, a family bakery that has operated in Japantown for over a century, except during World War II; Umeya, one of the earliest mass-producers of fortune cookies in Southern California, and the Hong Kong Noodle company, a Chinese-owned business. Fugetsudo and Benkyodo both have discovered their original 「kata」 black iron grills, almost identical to the ones that are used today in the Kyoto bakery.
這段時期還有不少舊金山的生意人也在製作幸運餅乾，比如風月堂(Fugetsudo)，這是一家家族烘焙屋，在日本城(Japantown)已經開了一個多世紀，僅在「二戰」期間暫時關張；還有梅屋(Umeya)，這是南加州最早大批生產幸運餅乾的公司之一；還有華人企業香港麵條公司(Hong Kong Noodle)。風月堂和勉強堂都發現了他們最早的「kata」黑鐵烤架，幾乎和如今京都烘焙屋內使用的烤架一模一樣。
🌟 identical
(adj.) 完全相同的
▷ 常與to搭配，表示「與...一模一樣的」
▷ 例句：His jacket is identical to mine. 他的夾克衫與我一模一樣。
寫論文時，我們常常會說自己與作者「觀點一致」，可以表示I hold identical views with the author.
= The author and I are in agreement on this topic.
= I am of the same opinion as the author.
「Maybe the packaging of fortune cookie must say 『Japanese fortune cookie — made in Japan,』 」 said Gary Ono, whose grandfather founded Benkyodo.
「或許幸運餅乾的包裝應該寫上『日本幸運餅乾——日本製造』，」勉強堂創始人的孫子加裡·小野(Gary Ono)說。
Ms. Nakamachi is still unsure how exactly fortune cookies made the jump to Chinese restaurants. But during the 1920s and 1930s, many Japanese immigrants in California owned chop suey restaurants, which served Americanized Chinese cuisine. The Umeya bakery distributed fortune cookies to well over 100 such restaurants in southern and central California.
中町泰子仍然不能確定幸運餅乾是怎麼跑到中餐館去的。但是在20世紀二三十年代，加州的很多日本移民都在開中式雜碎餐館，提供美式中餐。梅屋向加利福尼亞南部和中部的100多家類似餐館供應幸運餅乾。
🌟chop suey 炒雜碎，雜燴
又稱李鴻章雜碎，是盛行於北美地區的的美式中國菜，至今已有一百多年的歷史。因1896年中國近代政治人物李鴻章遊歷美國而名聲大噪，進而在當地流行，後來還傳入加拿大，成為北美一道受人喜歡的中國美食。
「At one point the Japanese must have said, fish head and rice and pickles must not go over well with the American population,」 said Mr. Ono, who has made a campaign of documenting the history of the fortune cookie through interviews with his relatives and by publicizing the discovery of the kata grills.
「這些日本人在某個時候一定說過，魚頭、米飯和泡菜是不可能在美國那麼受歡迎的，」小野先生說，他發起了一場記錄幸運餅乾歷史的活動，採訪自己的親戚，並且宣傳kata烤架這一發現。
Early on, Chinese-owned restaurants discovered the cookies, too. Ms. Nakamachi speculates that Chinese-owned manufacturers began to take over fortune cookie production during World War II, when Japanese bakeries all over the West Coast closed as Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps.
華人餐館也在早期發現了這種餅乾，中町泰子女士推斷，華人製造商是在「二戰」期間開始接手幸運餅乾的生產，當時西海岸的日裔美國人都被送入拘留營，日本人的烘焙屋也都關門了。
🌟take over
常用的意思是「接手，接任」，如「接管校長職務」，可以說「take over as president」; 警察「接受一起案件」，可以說「take over a case」;
當然，它還有「（憑武力）控制，佔領」的意思，如近期美國」黑命貴」（Black Lives Matter）抗議活動，數萬名示威者「take over the streets」進行抗議。
Mr. Wong pointed out: 「The Japanese may have invented the fortune cookie. But the Chinese people really explored the potential of the fortune cookie. It’s Chinese-American culture. It only happens here, not in China.」
黃先生指出：「日本人可能發明了幸運餅乾，但確實是中國人開發了它的潛能。它是華裔美國文化。這種文化只有美國才有，中國是沒有的。」
That sentiment is echoed among some descendants of the Japanese immigrants who played an early role in fortune cookies. 「If the family had decided to sell fortune cookies, they would have never done it as successfully as the Chinese have,」 said Douglas Dawkins, the great-great-grandson of Makoto Hagiwara. 「I think it’s great. I really don’t think the fortune cookie would have taken off if it hadn’t been popularized in such a wide venue.」
不少在幸運餅乾初創之際扮演重要角色的日本移民的後裔，都認同這種說法。「如果我們的家族當初決定賣幸運餅乾，也不會像中國人那樣成功，」萩原真的玄外孫道格拉斯·道金斯(Douglas Dawkins)說。「我覺得這很好。我覺得幸運餅乾如果不是在中餐館這樣廣泛的場所流行起來，也不會像現在這樣火爆。」
1. enigmatic (adj.) 神秘的
2. perplex (vt.) 使困惑，使茫然
3. cracker (n.) （鹹的）薄脆餅乾
4. concede (vt.) 承認（事實）/（某種觀點）
5. ingenuity (n.) 足智多謀
6. resemblance (n.) 相似，類似
7. confectionery (n.) （統稱）甜食
8. immigrant 移民vs emigrant 移居外國者
9. mainstay (n.) 中堅，支柱
10. identical (adj.) 完全相同的
11. chop suey炒雜碎，雜燴
【詞組匯總】
1. ward off 避免，防止（不良或有害事物）
2. sift through sth. 仔細審核某物（文件或證據等）；翻找，仔細搜尋
3. a needle in a haystack 大海撈針
4. yearn for sth. 渴望得到某物
5. lay claim to 堅持對...所有權
6. take over接任；佔領