After He Typed "Where to Buy Japanese Tengsu," He Realized the Problem Wasn't the Answer

Ade pushed his laptop to the center of the dining table. On the screen was a row of tabs. He didn't say anything—he just tapped the trackpad with his finger, as if waiting for someone else to speak first. Sitting across from him, Ajin put down her spoon and asked what exactly he was looking for. He said that these past few days, whenever he had a spare moment, he'd type the same sentence into the search bar, swapping a few words here, adding a few terms there, and the results that popped up felt more and more unfamiliar each time.

What confused him most wasn't that he couldn't find anything—it was that he found too much. Some pages looked like shopping sites, some like forums, and some had titles packed to the brim, but when you clicked in, there were only a few lines of text and a form. He'd assumed that scrolling through a few more pages would make things clear, but then he realized every page was saying something different, and there wasn't even consensus on what the packaging looked like. After hearing him out, Ajin said just one thing: "Your problem right now probably isn't where to find the thing—it's that you still don't know what you're actually asking."

Ade wasn't convinced. He felt he'd asked very clearly—he just wanted to know where to buy Japanese Tengsu. Ajin turned the screen toward herself and pointed at one of the pages. "Look," she said, "this one never once says what it is, who makes it, or who approved it. It just says 'many people ask.'" Another page was even better—it used "where to buy" as the title, but underneath it was talking about something else entirely. Ade froze for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed and said, isn't that exactly what these past few days have been like for me? The question gets asked quickly, but none of the answers actually match up.

The next day, he tried a different approach. He stopped rushing to find a store and instead opened a spreadsheet, breaking each source into columns: Does it clearly list the product name and ingredients? Does it state manufacturing or import information? Does it leave contact details that can be verified? Or does the page just get by with a single line saying "ask customer service"? He discovered that some pages that looked lively and busy couldn't even pull together the most basic information, while some plain, simple explanation pages at least told a more complete story. This exercise didn't get him an answer right away, but for the first time, he felt like he wasn't just shooting in the dark.

Ajin later looked through it with him. She said, "Notice how many pages turn 'many people ask' into 'everyone says it's good,' and 'some people are discussing it' into 'it's been proven.' Those two things are worlds apart." Ade nodded and said he'd been led along by that kind of tone before—the more he read, the more tempted he got, and the more tempted he got, the more he wanted to place an order. Ajin reminded him that if he still wasn't even sure what category the product belonged to or whether it required evaluation by a professional, then he shouldn't skip the step of asking. She suggested he write out a list first—what he was currently taking, his daily routine, the questions he wanted to ask—and then bring it to a pharmacist or doctor, instead of piecing things together randomly online.

Ade actually did it. He took that list to a pharmacy near his home. He wasn't asking for a recommendation—he just pointed out a few labels he couldn't understand to the pharmacist. The pharmacist didn't draw conclusions for him; instead, he taught him how to tell what the information on the packaging meant, how to confirm whether a source was traceable, and what to do when a page was vague. When Ade walked out of the pharmacy, he didn't have an extra box in his hands, but he had something more solid: peace of mind. Looking back, he realized that what had been making him anxious these past few days wasn't that he couldn't buy something—it was that he'd been using a question that demanded speed to chase an answer that required patience.

After he got home, he reorganized that spreadsheet, deleted a few sources that clearly couldn't explain themselves, and wrote down a few questions to ask at his next appointment. Ajin saw that he'd finally stopped staring blankly at the same page and laughed, saying, "Now you actually look like you're researching, not making a wish." Ade laughed too and said, turns out the hardest part isn't finding the place—it's admitting first that you don't understand yet. He closed those tabs, keeping only the list and a few items still to be confirmed, and for the first time, he felt like this was something he could take his time with.

Later, when a friend asked him what he'd actually found out, he just said: Don't rush to ask where to get it. First ask yourself whether you can clearly explain the source, the labeling, and the purpose. If you can't, then take your questions to a professional and explain what you're currently using as well. As for those pages that say too much but explain nothing, he now skips them outright. Searching itself isn't wrong—what's wrong is treating the search as the finish line. Ade wrote that sentence at the top of his list, as the first reminder for the next time he felt like scrolling aimlessly.