Abstract
A Chinese boy in Hong Kong who vomited for 14 months after his father had gone abroad to work is reported. Despite the very obvious predicament and sadness, more than 30 doctors had failed to understand the patient. In their search for a disease to explain the symptom, they trapped both themselves and the patient in the symptom of vomiting. It is argued that this patient should have been understood not from the angle of the traditional medical model. Neither was the psychoanalytical model useful. Rather the communication model of hysteria is much more practical; the vomiting can be construed as the unseen tears of a boy entrenched helplessly in his predicament. These unseen and unrecognized tears had cost the patient 14 months of precious life.