“What is Mental Health?”

“Uncle Jay, what’s mental health?” asked 11 year old Nate.

I deepened my voice and was about to reply, “Well, son…” when I realized that I wasn’t his dad and he wasn’t “John Boy.”

And just to clarify, I’m not really his uncle. However, in Chinese culture, kids call adults who aren’t related to them as “Uncle” or “Auntie”. It’s the equivalence of calling someone Mister or Ms son-and-so. But seriously, don’t ask me why they don’t just do that because it gets terribly confusing trying to discern if the person is actually a relative or not.

Nate’s the stepson of my best friend and he’s also my son’s good friend, hence he came over to play some video games and crash at our place for the weekend.

We happened to be watching the NBA basketball playoffs between our beloved Cleveland Cavaliers (“Go Cavs!”) take on Canada’s one and…