My Father Never Learned WeChat Pay. So I Made His Payment Code His Lock Screen.

In 2017, my father said he wanted a new phone.

He asked me to go with him to town. The phone shop had glass counters and rows of machines. He picked a smartphone that cost four hundred yuan. It took almost a minute to turn on. The screen lit up. The icons were blurry. One tap and an ad popped up. I told him this phone was not worth taking for free. He asked what he should buy. At home I ordered a used first-generation iPhone SE from JD.com. When it arrived, I checked the battery, screen, and camera. No problems. I gave it to him. I said the original price was over two thousand, and I got it for eight hundred. He believed me. He was happy.

That was his first smartphone. I installed WeChat, Alipay, and Kuaishou. I registered the accounts and kept the passwords in my phone. I taught him fingerprint unlock. He pressed his finger. The screen opened. He smiled. I taught him the password, weather, time, camera, and photos. In less than a week he was comfortable. Kuaishou needed no teaching. People his age in the village talked to each other. Whose daughter-in-law cooked, who sang Qin opera. He scrolled faster than me.

WeChat took longer. First he could receive messages, listen to voice notes, read simple text. Then he learned to send voice notes. His first voice note to me had chickens in the background and wind. He said, “Have you eaten?” I replied, “I have.” He never learned to send pictures. He never learned WeChat Pay. He shook his head. He would not learn. He was afraid of sending money to the wrong person. He was afraid of being cheated. I agreed. Cash works in town. At the market, at the small shop, at the door, cash works.

In 2023 I went home. He still could not open his WeChat payment code. Open WeChat, tap Me, tap Services, tap Wallet, tap Receive Money, tap QR code. He could not remember. People waited to pay him. He got anxious. I made a lock-screen wallpaper. I put his payment QR code on it. I took a screenshot, cropped it, set it as the lock screen. Five minutes to make. When someone needed to pay, he pressed the power button. The screen lit up. They scanned. A beep. Money arrived. He was satisfied. His phone stayed clean. It did not lag. Later I gave him an iPhone 8, then an iPhone SE III. I transferred the data. He used them. He had seen Android phones. His friends’ phones were full of junk apps and opening ads. His was not.

FaceTime was the only video call he knew how to make. When I traveled, he tapped my name. He could see me. Two years ago, FaceTime video started jumping to WeChat. He tapped video. It opened a WeChat chat window. He did not know what happened. I made a Shortcut and put it on his home screen. I told him to find me inside the FaceTime app. The path had been taken away. I laid it back.

Doubao and other AI tools, he does not touch. He reads few characters. He is a rural old man. He wants certainty. The button that lets him hear his son. The button that receives money. The button that shows the weather. The rest is extra.

Teaching a parent to use a phone is hard in three ways. The first is operation. Icons are abstract, menus are deep. The second is fear. They fear tapping wrong, losing money, being cheated, causing trouble. The third is memory. Teach today, forget tomorrow. So teach less. Teach what they need. Cover the rest yourself. Solve one thing they need to do often. Put the button they need on the home screen, lock screen, or a Shortcut. Turn off password-free payment. Set limits. Link fewer cards. Not learning payment is fine. Learning from peers works. Let them learn twenty percent. I cover the rest.

My father cannot use WeChat Pay, send pictures, or use Doubao. But he can answer a video call, send a voice note, and light up his lock screen to receive money. He is at home in Linxia. He taps the screen. He sees me. I am outside. I hear his voice note. Wind in the background. Chickens. His Mandarin, not standard. He presses the power button. The screen lights. The code shows. A beep. Tomorrow I will call him again.