PW locket
A forgetting person never feel hurt
Dear friends,
On Friday, mom called to ask whether I remembered her iCloud password.
“How can I know???,” I asked her back, annoyed as the SQL statement I just ran didn’t work.
In fact, I used to know it.
I set up her iPhone some years ago, synced it with my old iPad, changed the font size to the biggest so that she could browse Facebook at ease.
I remember jotting down the password in one of my journals yet cannot figure out which one.
Mom needed it to download a mobile banking app from App Store. She was with a teller who waited to launch an operation of introducing my cash-only mom to fintech.
The operation failed.
She withdrew some cash and went home, saying she would rather let me test four options that could be the password I sent her via Messenger than do it on her own.
Dad’s work email is linked with my personal one.
I decided to hack his account to track where he was last located five Tết ago when he was out drinking past midnight and unable to be contacted.
That incident never happens again but dad becomes assured to have his passwords stored by me.
Whenever his email is logged into a new device, I have to call him to ask whether he has changed to another computer and remind him to log out afterward.
My parents’ dependence on me to operate electronics and manage social media accounts has switched the family power dynamics.
They always ask me in a tiny voice whenever something off occurs – software update notifications, AirDrop errors or even what to do with a Zalo message from Lazada saying there is VND800,000 (US$33) worth of vouchers in their account.
There is an Apple store in my old neighborhood of Williamsburg by which I used to swing to pick up friends’ orders. They sometimes offered periodic smartphone using tutorials for seniors. Seeing groups of elders paying due attention to tech support employees explaining how to send an iMessage, take, save and transfer photos, play Youtube videos or make a Facetime call was strangely touching.
I wished I could be that patient to my parents until they asked me everything password.
And I myself start seeing me save e-wallet credentials in a locked note. For security reasons, most accounts are asked for new passwords every 6 months. I cannot come up with new ones neither remember them.
Aging is cruel. It begins with a morning when you wake up and see a bit of your digital life fade away, simply because you cannot recall which letter is capitalized.
I don’t know who is more miserable – parents and their low-tech contemporaries who have been living on the sidelines of this digital age or me who will be someday out of breath in this race.
The other day, my partner was left in the rain with a dead phone by the national highway 1A. I ran 4 ride-hailing apps simultaneously, trying to book him a bike from afar.
Via phone, I described him with the driver. “Please look for a person wearing a black puffer vest and a yellow bucket hat. He is probably standing next to Yen So Park signboard.”
The partner, meanwhile, was sipping tea and having a smoke with the park guard – a middle aged man who let him use his charger to reboot the phone and promised to drive him home after the shift if there was no driver available.
Till next time,
T.
This week’s top picks
How people in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta prepare for a gathering (here is đám giỗ – death anniversary). A lot of cooking techniques learned.
A friend’s new walking tour in Hà Nội.
https://hainv90.wordpress.com/2023/08/05/giua-hai-vong-thanh/
A picture I took in Cúc Phương National Park on Sunday during a forest therapy session by another friend. Catch her before she leaves the country for a PhD.
