When I heard that my nephew would came from American and stayed with us for a whole month, I was a little excited about his visit. To be honest, sentiment had nothing to do with it. After all the last time when I saw him eight years ago, he was still a whining baby. The total time I spent with him was not more than 7 days. It usually takes longer to create some sort of emotional attachments, isn’t it?

My excitement came from a more practical reason. My nephew is a typical Banana—a Chinese boy who was born in American, which makes him a perfect English teacher. He has the flawless American English accent of a Middle-Class American teenage would have , and I thought it's a perfect opportunity to improve my broken oral English, I could speak freely with him and under no pressures I usually would feel when I spoke to a foreigner.

A few days later after I met him in person, I realized that my plan of getting a free English tutor had hit into an invisible wall. He is not very talkative and even more silent around us. If he has to speak something, he would speak in his broken Chinese. If I asked him something in English, he would give me a curt reply as short as possible.

There are two things he is very obsessed with. One of them is computer game. He could spend a whole day in front of the computer without a move, sometimes I doubt if he has acutally been glued to the chair---i mean, literally. Only Ice Cream, his another obsession, could allure him out of the syber world. However, his mother is very strict on his daily ice cream quota because he is overweight (the reason is obvious). Therefore to control his addiction to computer game, we are left nothing but “Evil Auntie Card” to play.

As soon as I came back from work, my parents-in-law would shout:” Victor, get out. Your auntie needs to use the computer!” Reluctantly, his dancing finger across the keyboard stopped, he would throw a last lingering look at his favorite game and then drag himself out of the chair. In the family, I am only one who is not his blood. Naturally, he has some fear out of emotional distances towards me. It gave me some leverage. That leverage, of course, comes with strings, because it made it even more difficult to warm him up.

Last night I was in the kitchen, Victor was buried himself in Harry Potter (when he is not in syber world, he would lost himself in Harry Potter Series), and my son was playing his toy. Soon, my son got bored, and he came forward to Victor.

“Dada Up.” My son said, emphasizing the d sound. He could speak the sound now, but when he spoke a few English words he learned from his kindergarten, he felt back into babyish speech patterns.

Victor continued to read his book, without batting an eyelid.

“Down, down, sit down.” My son kept his English show, patting his knees and sitting down in front of his cousin like his teacher did when she taught them this phrase.

Like a miracle, Victor stood up at my son’s babbled order “Sit Down.”  He was still holding his book, but I could catch a smile curved around his mouth.

My son certainly felt a little confused, but he kept trying: “Dada Up.” He repeated, and stood up as he said.

Victor sat down again, this time my son was totally lost, he dragged Victor’s sleeve, and tried to force him to stand up. We all burst into a laugh, even Victor. A sense of lightness began to sweep through the whole place. Suddenly, I realized that we all got this 11-year-old kid wrong. How lonely he must feel for all these days! He is far away from his parents, his friends, and his country. (He still has a Chinese boy’s face, but inside he is an American thorough and thorough) We blamed him for his obsession on computer game, but can we really understand his helplessness and loneliness?  Computer game now probably is his only connection to the world he is familiar with.

Victor and my son started their chase-and-run game, and the rooms were soon filled with their screams and laughters. Perhaps it only takes an innocent heart to open another innocent heart.