We made a 98-foot-long string telephone at our Japanese countryside house, but does it work?

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Why did we make it? Only our boss knows–and only him.

Our Japanese-language reporter Go Hatori has learned in his time with Yoshio, our boss and the founder of SoraNews24, that anything and everything could happen with him. That could be anything from building a steel rack taller than our Japanese countryside house, the Sorahouse for no other purpose than to build it, to having an adults-only soap bubble party.

So when Yoshio told Go, “I want to make a string telephone that’s 30 meters (98.4 feet) long,” he considered it par for the course. They gathered up 30 meters of kite string, some paper cups, and pins to hold the string in place.

Then they stood exactly 30 meters apart from each other, holding the string taut, and tested it out. And the first thing Yoshio asked Go over the string telephone was…

▼ …”What color is your underwear today?“

Go was impressed. Never mind what Yoshio said–he could hear it clear as day. It worked!

Go replied with something equally out of context:

▼ “I chose Nankan Tires from a Taiwan manufacturer for our car today.”

Yoshio confirmed he could clearly hear Go too, and shouting “Amazing!” 98 feet was an impressive length for a working telephone string.

“Let’s try out 100 meters (328 feet)!” Yoshio suggested next. Luckily, they had another 97 feet of kite string on hand, so they set to work on their next experiment.

Yoshio took one end of the string and told Go, “Stay right there!” and away he walked down the street leading to our Japanese countryside home.

Before long, though, he had turned a corner. String telephones don’t work unless the string is pulled taut and there are no obstructions, but Yoshio was too far away by then.

Yoshio soon returned with a look of sheepish defeat on his face. They weren’t able to test out their longer string telephone this time, but they did learn one thing: it’s hard to find a straight stretch of 100 meters in our neighborhood.

“Let’s try it in another place someday!” Yoshio said cheerfully. Go wondered what wonders would await his time with Yoshio next.

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