His father's list said Linlin Pharmacy, and it took three nights of asking to understand why
1 week ago
On a weekend evening, A-Hong went back to his hometown for dinner. Just before he left, his father pulled a folded slip of paper from a drawer and said, "When you have time, help me buy the things written on this. I can't read those words." The paper bore his father's usual ballpoint handwriting. The first few lines read soy sauce, toothpaste, batteries, but the last line had the name of a store, followed by a few items that had been crossed out and rewritten. A-Hong stared at that line for a long time. His first thought wasn't curiosity—it was caution.
He took a photo of the slip and only examined it carefully after returning to his rented room. In the crossed-out section, he could vaguely make out the character "藤," with the two small characters "日本" beside it. He thought of those messages relatives had been passing around in the family group chat a while back, with headlines more alarming than the last—something about over-supplementing, something about problematic ingredients. His father had never been much of an internet user. If he'd written down this name, he'd most likely heard it from a friend or at some gathering. A-Hong didn't ask right away. He knew that if he did, his father would just say "It's fine" and change the subject.
The first night, he did the most tedious homework: he typed every legible word from the slip into the search bar and looked at them one by one. The results were a mess—forums, online stores, articles that looked like content farms, and a pile of product names he couldn't make sense of. He realized what was tripping him up wasn't a lack of information, but not knowing which source to trust. What did his father actually want? Was it trouble sleeping, feeling his energy declining, or was he simply persuaded by a friend? The slip didn't say. That was the real problem.
The second night, he tried a different approach. Instead of guessing what his father needed, he broke the question apart: Was this name a store, a product, or some kind of nickname? If it was a store, why would his father have written it down? He wrote several possibilities on sticky notes and stuck them along the edge of his screen. One column read: If this is a place elders buy from based on word of mouth, then what really needs confirming is "why he wants to buy it," not "where to buy it." That thought gave him a bit of relief, because the former was something he could work through with his father, while the latter was beyond his help.
The third night, he decided to ask directly, but with a different opening. Instead of "What are you buying this for?" he said, "I don't quite understand this list. Could you tell me what each item is for?" His father was silent for a moment, then pointed to the last line and said a friend had recommended it, saying it made you feel more energetic, and the friend had also said that if you want to buy it, you should go to Linlin Pharmacy. A-Hong didn't respond, just filed that sentence away in his mind. He later searched a few keywords online, wanting to confirm the context of discussions about this name on the internet, and also to see if anyone had shared a similar shopping experience. What he found was that most discussions stopped at "who told you about it"—very few came back to the packaging labels or the source itself.
He told his father that he couldn't help decide whether to take this kind of thing, because everyone's health situation is different, and some of it might even be prescription medication—buying it casually and taking it isn't appropriate. What he could do was go through the packaging with his father: what the ingredients said, whether there was clear manufacturing and expiration information, and whether a friend's recommendation meant it was right for him. His father seemed a little unconvinced, saying his friend had taken it and felt great. A-Hong didn't argue, just said, "Then next time we go for a checkup, let's bring this list and ask the doctor or pharmacist together, okay?" His father didn't say yes, but he didn't refuse either.
The following week, A-Hong actually photocopied the list and put it in a ziplock bag along with several supplements his father regularly took. He wrote the date on the bag to remind himself to bring it out at the checkup. He also searched a few keywords online, wanting to confirm the context of discussions about this name, but found that most discussions stopped at "who told you about it"—very few came back to the packaging labels or the source itself. This made him more certain that what his father needed wasn't a purchase link, but someone willing to slowly help him ask the right questions.
On the day of the checkup, his father did bring the ziplock bag. The doctor didn't draw conclusions about any single product, only said to first list clearly what he was currently taking, then confirm the necessity of each item one by one. Walking out of the consultation room, his father put the slip back in his pocket and said, "Let's not buy it for now." A-Hong didn't ask why, just nodded. On the way home, his father suddenly said that he'd actually just been sleeping more lightly lately, and when a friend said it worked, he got tempted. A-Hong listened and felt that the three nights of questioning had finally found their answer: the name on the slip wasn't the point. The point was that his father was finally willing to speak his real trouble out loud.
I understand your concern, but maybe what your father wants isn't for you to judge whether it's safe to take, but to trust that his judgment is respected. The fact that he's willing to tell you "a friend said it works" is already him sharing with you. If you focus on "you can't just take anything," next time he might not even show you the note. Instead of questioning him for three nights, it might open up the conversation faster to just smile on the first night and say, "I've never heard of that name—where did your friend hear about it?"