Letters: Fortunes, Chopsticks and ... Cheese?

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

Time now for some of your comments about yesterday's program, and there was lots of mail responding to Michele Norris' conversation with Jennifer 8. Lee about her new book "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food."

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Most of you who wrote wanted to share your own fortune cookie experiences. This is from Jedzilla Tracey(ph) of Vista, California.

I had a good laugh listening to your interview. When I was pregnant 40 years ago, I got a fortune cookie that said: she will have twins. Too bad my doctor didn't get this fortune cookie. He might not have been so surprised.

SIEGEL: Donna Devries(ph) wrote from Berg, Belgium. In 1971, on my 30th birthday, I opened a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant and read: a trip to Europe awaits you. By the time my 31st birthday rode around, I was engaged to be married to a Dutchman. My trip to Europe has stretch to encompass over 35 years.

BLOCK: And Claire Stephens(ph) of Yorktown, Virginia, writes: Your story reminded me of my all-time favorite fortune cookie fortune - you're about to become $8.95 poorer, $6.95 if you had the buffet.

SIEGEL: Well, before we leave Chinese food altogether, Mimi Gingold(ph) of Cincinnati wrote after hearing our report on China's opposition to disposable chopsticks. Environmentalists there are worried that all those chopsticks are making deforestation worse.

This is absurd, she writes. Chopsticks are made of easily renewable resources. Chinese environmentalists who want to tackle the real problem should address the tremendous overuse of plastic bags. Every tourist boat ride down the Li River or any other river in China is ruined by the abundance of plastic bags and litter hung up in trees and routes all along the banks. Of all of China's abundant environmental problems, chopsticks is not one of them.

BLOCK: And we got several responses to our series Vocal Impressions that were similar to this e-mail from Kyle Cassidy(ph) of Philadelphia.

Sweet barking cheese, he writes. With all that's going on in the world, you can afford to waste three minutes of news time on what people think other people's voices sound like? Please, there must be something important you left out of the news you could have put back in to end this infotainment.

BLOCK: Sweet barking cheese - Robert, I hadn't heard that before. Have you?

SIEGEL: No. No.

BLOCK: Okay. If you want to comment on anything you hear on the program, go to our Web site, npr.org and click on Contact Us at the top of the page. Remember to tell us, please, where you're from and how you pronounce your name. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.