He Brought That Box Back from Okinawa, and We Argued About Japan 2H2D

At the duty-free shop in Naha Airport, Okinawa, Chen Bo-yu stood in front of a whole row of brightly colored boxes, lifting his phone and putting it down, then lifting it again. His wife, Lin Yu-ting, was nearby in the souvenir section picking out red sweet potato tarts. She glanced back at him but said nothing. That trip was their sixth wedding anniversary gift—four days and three nights, with a loose itinerary: walks by the sea, ramen, strolling through Kokusai Street. On the last day, in a drugstore, Bo-yu finally put one of the boxes into his shopping basket. He checked out quickly, as if afraid someone might see.

After returning to Taiwan, that box was shoved into the top shelf of the bathroom mirror cabinet, next to cold medicine and bandages. Yu-ting found it while looking for saline solution. She didn't ask right away. Instead, she took the box out and looked at it for a long time. It was covered in dense Japanese text; she recognized only a few kanji and guessed the rest from the icons on the packaging. That evening, she placed the box on the dining table and waited for Bo-yu to come out of the shower.

"What is this?" she asked. Bo-yu froze for a moment, then said a friend had asked him to buy it. Yu-ting said, "A friend asked you to buy it, so you put it in our bathroom?" The two fell silent for a while. Bo-yu eventually admitted he had seen some discussions online that made it seem like every man should have a box on hand. He wasn't sure if he needed it, but seeing so many varieties on the shelf, he suddenly felt he should buy one. Yu-ting wasn't angry. She just said, "You can't even explain how it's different from the others, and you already bought it."

That comment became the thing they kept coming back to over the next few days. Bo-yu admitted that he had seen at least a dozen products in the store—gels, sprays, ones claiming different countries of origin—priced from a few hundred to over a thousand yen. His only criteria at the time were: the packaging looked good, and the price was acceptable. He hadn't looked at the ingredients, what situations it was for, or whether he should consult a professional first. Yu-ting said it was like buying supplements at a supermarket: dozens of jars on the shelf, each claiming to be the best, and people often end up choosing the one with the prettiest packaging.

The following weekend, Yu-ting brought her laptop next to him, and they looked up information together. They first checked the labeling fields on the outer packaging to confirm whether basic information like product name, manufacturer, and storage instructions was complete, then looked into how such products are classified in Taiwan. Bo-yu then realized that items sitting on the same drugstore shelf could be classified as general merchandise or possibly fall under pharmaceutical regulation—the difference wasn't price, but legal classification. Yu-ting said what concerned her wasn't which box to buy, but when their household had started handling such matters with a "buy first, figure it out later" approach.

Their conversation then took a turn. Bo-yu mentioned that he wasn't actually trying to solve a problem—he had been under a lot of work stress and often felt unmotivated. Seeing those products on the shelf felt like finding an outlet to "do something." Yu-ting replied, "Then what you need to deal with is exhaustion, not a box." She suggested that instead of continuing to read comparisons online, they should make a list of the supplements and over-the-counter medicines at home and bring it to a doctor or pharmacist at their next appointment to check for duplicates or conflicts. Bo-yu said he had never thought of asking that way. Yu-ting replied, "That's because you've been reading product pages, not instructions."

What truly changed him was a trip to the clinic with his father. While waiting, he casually asked the pharmacist how to distinguish those products claiming different effects on the shelf. The pharmacist didn't recommend any particular one. He just said: first confirm your own condition, then check the product labeling, and only then decide whether to buy. If you reverse the order, you'll easily waste money. After returning home, Bo-yu took the box down from the mirror cabinet and put it in his desk drawer, together with his passport and travel ticket stubs. He told Yu-ting he had decided not to open it for now, until he truly understood what he needed.

Yu-ting's reaction was calmer than he expected. She said she wasn't against buying it—she was against not talking about it. That night they talked until midnight, about how each of them had faced stress over the years and why some things they'd rather search for online than say out loud. Bo-yu later created a memo on his phone titled "Ask First, Then Buy." The first line read: List the supplements and medications you're currently taking. The second line read: If unsure, ask a professional. He didn't open that shopping website again.

Whether that box was ever used, they never told anyone, and it doesn't matter. What mattered was the conversation at the dining table, which let the two of them practice speaking their worries aloud again. Bo-yu still occasionally browses drugstores, but now he looks at the labels first and then thinks about whether he's been tired again lately. Yu-ting says that now when she sees the dazzling array of packaging on shelves, she remembers the way he stood in front of the mirror that night, and then reminds herself that what a relationship truly needs isn't an answer, but a willingness to ask the questions clearly together. As for the name Japan 2H2D, it was something they read seriously for the first time while looking up information. After reading it, they decided to put it back on the shelf, along with all the questions they hadn't yet figured out.