The lunchbox hadn't even been opened yet when Lao Zhou, sitting across the table, suddenly blurted out, "You guys know about that Japanese Tengsu stuff?" His tone was like tossing a small pebble into water. Three people sat at the table, their ages spanning nearly a full generation, yet their reactions couldn't have been more different.
Xiao Chen, the assistant in his twenties, laughed first, saying he'd only seen people repost it in group chats, the images so blurry you couldn't even make out the text. Lao Zhou, just past forty, said a colleague had been asked to buy some while traveling abroad, but came back saying he couldn't tell what the difference was supposed to be. The older man, pushing sixty, slowly took a bite of rice and said he'd been hearing about this kind of thing for far too many years—the names kept changing, but the stories were all pretty much the same.
The conversation drifted to other topics after that meal, but A-De, the main character of this story, filed it away in his mind. Not because he wanted to try it, but out of curiosity: why did the same thing sound like three different worlds depending on who was talking? On the MRT ride home, he lined up the versions he'd heard in his head. First: "I heard it's really expensive." Second: "I heard you have to get the Japanese one." Third: "I heard someone took it and really felt something." All three sounded smooth enough, but on closer thought, every single one was "I heard"—nobody could say what they'd actually seen for themselves.
Back home, A-De did something very ordinary: he wrote those three statements on sticky notes and stuck them on the fridge door. He wanted to know which ones could be verified on packaging or public information, and which were just hearsay. The first one, about price, was actually pretty easy to pin down just by looking at labels and sales channels—expensive or not is a matter of comparison, not rumor. The second, about origin, made him realize how easily the word "Japan" gets treated as a guarantee, but where something is made and what's actually in it are two different things. You have to read what's on the package, not listen to who said what. The third was the hardest, because "feeling something" is someone else's bodily experience—he couldn't verify it, and he shouldn't use it as the basis for his own judgment.
The next day, he brought the sticky notes to the office and, during a free moment, asked Lao Zhou, "So what exactly did your colleague buy?" Lao Zhou paused, then admitted he couldn't really remember—just that there was Japanese on the packaging. A-De didn't press further. Instead, he steered the conversation in another direction: if even the buyer isn't sure what he bought, how do rumors grow in the first place? He later saw plenty of people online discussing this kind of product as if it were just an ordinary health supplement. Some reminded others to check ingredient labels and sources. Others suggested bringing whatever you're currently using to ask a pharmacist. He didn't believe all of it, but at least these suggestions pointed toward "how to check" rather than "what happens if you take it."
That weekend, A-De accompanied his family to a pharmacy to pick up some everyday medicine. While waiting in line, he casually asked the person at the counter: if you have questions about a product with unclear labeling, what's the best way to ask? The answer was: first, read the product name, ingredients, and source on the packaging clearly, then confirm what category it falls under—prescription drugs and ordinary foods are regulated differently, so don't lump them together. If you have a chronic condition or are on medication, bring your list to a professional even more carefully. After hearing this, A-De felt it was more solid than any "I heard." He also mentally reclassified the term Japanese Tengsu: it was a topic he was still learning about, not an answer he had already verified.
On the way home, he thought of what the older man had said—"the stories are all pretty much the same." Indeed, the usual pattern for this kind of topic is: first a vague name, then someone else's experience, and finally a casual "just give it a try anyway." But this time, A-De deliberately went the other way: first ask what category the name corresponds to, then look at the labeling and source, and only then decide whether to keep looking into it. He didn't reach any conclusion about effectiveness, nor would he vouch for anyone. He only knew that if one day he really wanted to understand, he should start with the packaging and legitimate sales channels—not with a joke at the lunch table.
The sticky notes were still on the fridge, except the third one had a line drawn through it. Next to it, he added a sentence: Someone else's feelings aren't yours to borrow. It wasn't any grand wisdom, but it gave him a sense of relief. Rumors are seductive because they skip the hassle of verification. But verification matters because everyone's health condition and medication situation is different—just because it worked for someone else doesn't mean it'll work for you.
The following week at lunch, Lao Zhou brought up the same name again. A-De just smiled and said he'd looked into it a bit but hadn't found anything that convinced him. Lao Zhou said forget it then, and Xiao Chen kept scrolling on his phone. The table conversation quickly moved on to other things, but A-De knew he had at least separated "I heard" from "I can verify." It wasn't cracking some big case—just the result of an ordinary person, faced with a pile of vague claims, being willing to ask one more question and take one more look.
Later, he put the sticky note in a drawer instead of throwing it away. He figured it was worth keeping. Next time someone brings up some new name in that same tone, he can first ask himself: is this rumor or data? If it's data, where's the source? If it's rumor, there's no rush to follow. This way of thinking didn't make him any more knowledgeable, but it gave him one less chance to be led along.
The distinction between "heard about it" and "can look it up" is a pretty important detail. But even if you find the packaging and the source, you still need to verify whether that information is reliable and whether it's been updated.