Lau never expected to become a fortune-cookie writer. After graduating from Columbia with degrees in engineering and business, he joined Bank of America, then ran a company that exported logs from the Pacific Northwest to China. In the early eighties, he was hired by a Chinatown noodle manufacturer, which eventually expanded into fortune cookies. The firm bought the Long Island City plant, and it soon became apparent that its antiquated catalogue of fortunes would have to be updated. (?Find someone as gay as you are,? one leftover from the nineteen-forties read.) ?We knew we needed to add new sayings,? Lau said. ?I was chosen because my English was the best of the group, not because I‘m a poet.? —Jeremy Olshan —Odd Jobs Dept: Cookie Master (New Yorker)