String-So-Soft?

[J Patrick Draine]

Baoli Liu wrote:

> Page 44 May 1996 PtJ.
>
> "this product,a mixture of fabric softener,naval jelly
> and secret sauce,is guaranteed to soft strings......
> those strings will be as mushy as catgut in no
> time......"
>

Dear Baoli,
I'm afraid you've been fooled by a hoax (an untrue story intended to
fool the naive [kai1 wan2 xiao4])! The author assumed the readers knew
that the information was placed on a "humor page". Sometimes living in a
foreign land can be very confusing! You'll see lots of stories with
similar hoaxes on our annual hoax day, April 1.

Live and learn.

Best wishes to you,

Patrick Draine