He Only Figured Out After Returning to Taiwan: What Really Sets Japan's 2H2D Apart from Similar Products

The weekend Chen Yanting got back from Kansai Airport, he hadn't even unpacked his suitcase before his wife, Lin Yizhen, gave him an earful. Not because he'd bought too much, but because while sorting through his clothes, she'd dug out a crumpled drugstore flyer, circled several times over in highlighter, with the words "What's the difference?" scribbled in the margin. Yizhen spread the paper out on the dining table and asked him, "On this trip to Japan, what exactly were you comparing?" Yanting was momentarily at a loss for words, because he honestly couldn't say—all he remembered was standing in that drugstore in Shinsaibashi, staring at a whole shelf of packages that all looked alike, with no idea where to even begin.

The whole thing started on the third day of the trip. That day was free time, and Yanting had originally planned to just grab a few boxes of steam eye masks for his coworkers and check out, but he stopped in front of a shelf around the corner. The shelf displayed all kinds of products with different claims—some said "long-lasting," some said "for sensitivity"—and he could only read about half the Japanese on the packaging. He tried looking things up on his phone, but the signal kept cutting in and out, so he ended up just taking a few photos and leaving. His friend Ahong, who was traveling with him, saw him hesitating and casually said, "Aren't these things all pretty much the same?" Yanting didn't answer, but something felt off to him—the prices ranged from over a thousand yen to over three thousand yen. If they were all the same, why were there so many different kinds?

After returning to Taiwan, he sent the photos to Yizhen. Her reaction was calmer than he'd expected—she just asked, "Do you want to buy, or do you want to understand?" That question made Yanting pause. He thought about it and said he wanted to understand. Yizhen nodded and said, then let's get the questions straight first—don't rush to place an order. She mentioned that when she'd previously looked into health supplements for an elderly relative, she'd learned something: the claims on the packaging and the actual ingredient labels are often two different things. Some are classified as regular food, while others may be classified as pharmaceuticals—they're regulated differently, and the channels through which you can get them are different too. Only after hearing this did Yanting realize he hadn't even figured out what category the products in his photos belonged to.

The next evening, the two of them sat in the living room and zoomed in on the photos, examining them bit by bit. Yizhen pointed to one and said she couldn't understand the ingredients listed on the packaging, but the back had a "医薬部外品" (quasi-drug) label, and it was in the same section as another one labeled "化粧品" (cosmetics). Only then did Yanting realize that the sections and labels in Japanese drugstores were themselves a clue. When he looked things up online, he also saw people discussing Japan's 2H2D. He didn't immediately believe any of the claims, but instead noted down the questions that kept coming up across several discussion threads: What category do these products fall under locally? How far does the stated scope of use on the packaging go? And if brought back to Taiwan, how are the relevant regulations determined?

Seeing him actually taking it seriously for once, Yizhen suggested making a list of questions. The first column was "What category is this," the second was "What does the packaging say," and the third was "What am I actually trying to solve." At first Yanting thought it was a bit much, but when he got to the third column, he got stuck. He realized he couldn't articulate a specific need—he just had a vague sense that he "should buy something." Yizhen didn't press him, just said, "If you can't even explain it to yourself, then buying it just means it'll sit there." It wasn't a harsh thing to say, but it left him quiet for a good while.

The two of them had a small argument over this. Yanting felt Yizhen was asking too many detailed questions, like she was questioning him; Yizhen thought that if something goes into your body or onto your skin, you should absolutely ask questions. The tension lasted two days, until Yanting spoke up on his own: "It's not that I don't want to talk about it—it's that I'm afraid it'll sound stupid." Yizhen laughed when she heard that and said what she'd been worried about was never whether it was stupid or not, but that he'd be quietly looking things up on his own and believing everything he found. Once they cleared the air, the questions on the list actually flowed more easily, and they added another column: "Who to ask." Yizhen suggested that instead of guessing on their own, he should bring a list of the medications and supplements he's currently using and ask a pharmacist or doctor, letting a professional help assess—that's more reliable than piecing together fragments of information online.

In the end, Yanting didn't buy anything on that trip. He put the list in a drawer and would occasionally pull it out to add a few notes. He realized that when comparing these kinds of products, what really matters isn't which word on the packaging is most appealing, but the category label, the scope of use, whether the source is clear, and what problem you're actually trying to solve. Yizhen stopped asking him how his research was going, and one night just handed him a note that read: "Thinking it through before buying is also a choice." Yanting stuck the note next to his list and felt that what he'd brought back from this trip was more than just a few photos.

That flyer with the highlighter marks didn't get thrown away in the end. Yizhen tucked it under the clear table mat on the dining table, saying they should keep it as a reminder: many arguments don't start because of the thing itself, but because one person is in a hurry to buy, another is in a hurry to ask, and nobody stops to talk things through first. Yanting still looks things up online occasionally, but he's learned to distinguish between advertising talk and verifiable label information, and he's learned to ask himself before buying whether this is something he truly needs.