It's not just made up, the story is almost a word for word translation of a story that's been circulating for years in Chinese. Of course people have called bullshit on it before.
If you can read Chinese, you can check the thorough debunking of this myth right here, from someone that actually works in a soap factory: https://www.zhihu.com/question/27132006
In this age of the internet, memes get translated pretty quickly. I'm curious whether you found some definitive source that tracked this meme to its origin in a Chinese story.
for what it's worth, I don't think they claimed that it originated in Chinese, merely that it was translated from Chinese at some point. it's possible that it originated not in Chinese, was translated to Chinese at some point, then translated back into English.
There's a story that has been circulating for years in Chinese. CHECK.
This story is almost a word for word translation of that. CHECK.
What is wrong with that statement? At the same time, A story that has been circulating for years in Chinese would also almost be a word for word translation of this story.
If you can read Chinese, you can check the thorough debunking of this myth right here, from someone that actually works in a soap factory: https://www.zhihu.com/question/27132006
And that was from 2014.