No, You Are Not Old Enough

Me, My Mom, and My Online Friend

“Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to Yuwei… Happy birthday to you…”

It was the 16th October, 2005 in Nanjing, Eastern China, and the date of my 14th birthday. There was a cute rainbow birthday cake, lots of sweet candies and gifts around me. The whole living room was full of my favorite pink color and happiness surrounded me. My mom surprised me early the next morning by giving me her old phone as an extra birthday gift. I had been waiting for this phone for a long time but she insisted I first needed to have good grade on the first monthly exams in every subject. The fall semester usually started on September 1st in China and I took the monthly exams at the end of that month. The good grades that showed up on my transcript brought the phone into my hands.

“I have already rewarded you this phone, you must keep study hard. Keep in mind, if I see the grade turns lower, I will take it back.” My mom’s voice was soft but serious. What’s more important, she reminded me not to share my number to others except relatives and classmates. She told me it was very unsafe for a girl to share her personal information with strangers, and especially with online friends.

I was the first one in my class to own a personal mobile phone, and, as such, I still had to use a computer to chat with classmates and online friends before my mom came home after school. My mom did not like to see me chatting online, especially chatting with online friends on QQ, which is Chinese ICQ. The space besides me was designed for her to watch my screen. When she would come home I would quit QQ to end all of the chats and pretend to search answers to solve homework problems.

I updated my QQ profile, “So excited to get my first phone, : )”. About two weeks later, one of my online friends on QQ, Jun, asked for my phone number. He said we could talk more via phone messages. And, yes, we exchanged our numbers since his selfie was handsome. I totally forgot my mom’s words, and I also did not think she was right at that time.

In the following days, we had chats almost everyday that started in the early morning and ended with Good Night when we went to sleep. He was a high school student, and, being in 8th grade, I was curious about high school life. We shared everything that happened to us. His life always sounded splendid. Sometimes he would attend basketball games, and sometimes he went to singing contest. He was good at many things, and looked amazing. He was in Guangzhou city, I was in Nanjing city. Even though there was 900 miles between us, we felt close to each other via the phone messages.

I felt so good and amazing that there was someone who shared his daily life with me and listened to all of my words everyday. He would comfort me patiently when I was upset, and always encourage me to be myself. At that time, he was like sunshine in my life. Our conversations also made me want to try to participate in many different activities, to be an awesome person like him. In these ways, this small phone changed my life. I began to taste something different, which could be called a sweet sense. At that simple age, I thought I fell in love with Jun. And I enjoyed it.

My mom, however, always thought such interests would hurt my studies and frequently told me that only poor students would like to involve themselves in these sorts of activities. She only wanted to see good grades on my exams, and did not seem to care about my actual thoughts and feelings.

Because of her beliefs I would delete all the messages with Jun before I got home everyday. I would also keep the phone silenced while at home. When my mom came into my room, I had to hide the phone in my pocket so that she would not see the messages. Also, since it was a pre-paid go phone, my mom only paid for a certain number of calling minutes and texts. I had to use my pocket money to pay for the exceeded text usage so that my mom would not notice that I used the phone a lot.

About one month after I started talking to Jun, I saw my mom standing outside my classroom to pick me up after school. It was a little strange since she never came to pick me up and I always walked home with my friends. She looked pale and it made me nervous. I was trying to figure out what happened.

On the whole way home we kept silent.

When we got home, my mom slammed a paper letter on the brown table in the living room, “Who send you this letter?” Her voice sounded like I would be eaten by her in the next couple of seconds.

I had a look. It was from Jun. “Just a friend.” I whispered. I used to tell him my school name and class, but I had no idea he would send me a letter to my school.

Suddenly, the room became dark in my eyes. The air was full of tension. I did not know what the letter was about, and what questions my mom would ask.

“Well, who keeps sending you messages everyday?” She showed me a printed record of my phone messages. “Friends? Online QQ friends? Friends send you a love letter? Do you really know him? Students cannot have relationships. Are you a student now? If you want to go together with him instead of study, get out from this home right now!”

My mom struck the table angrily and the table shook beneath her hands. That was the most terrible time that my mom got into crazy in my memory. I trembled, turned to the table, and wanted to have a look at the letter. But my mom tore the letter up suddenly.

“Give your phone to me!” my mom ordered. I started crying and begged my mom not to take it away. I was very frightened. I was afraid that she would really push me out the door if she saw that the messages contained things like “I like you” and “my sweetie.”

She took the phone from my pocket and called Jun in front of me. I became angry. It was my fault, it was me who not listened to her words, and totally none of Jun’s business. I felt really sorry for him. “Hello, Jun, right? It’s Wang Yuwei’s mother, please do not disturb my daughter any more. If I find you contact each other one more time, I will contact your parents immediately. Both of you are students. You also need to focus on study. Do not contact her any more!”

My mom hung up and turned to me. “Are you stupid to trust online friends? Have I told you before not share your number to others? Remember, you are a student, what you only need to do is pay attention on your study. Your math grade is 5 points lower than last time. I will not let other things have bad influence on you. Have dinner and go to study! I will not permit you get into any relationships until you enroll into university. Now, you are not old enough to make any other decisions.” She reset the phone; went to her room, slammed the door hard. She did not give me my phone back until the following year, after I had finished all of my middle school work. Thus I did not have any opportunity to explain to Jun what had happened, nor to apologize.

My mom always stressed the importance of studying hard and how dangerous online friends could be. According to her, I could not make any decisions for myself; she always saw me as a child. I did not like her position but I also could not change it, so I got accustomed to it. I loved her and enjoyed when she rewarded me for high scores, but I also hated her nagging when my grades decreased. Anyway, her attitude about these things was the normal life for me.

A couple of days after my mom confronted me about Jun, I found out that my class teacher had found the letter. My mom said my teacher always collected all the letters that were delivered to the gatekeeper office, checked them, and then gave them to us. He felt strange that my letter came from another far away city. After he read the letter, he contacted my mom and told her I had developed many bad behaviors that semester.

The anger burned me. He was a teacher, how could he read my letter? How could he not ask me, but ask my mom instead? Anyway, my mom totally supported and believed the teacher, and she thought what he did was completely good for me.

After the letter incident, I was also not permitted to use the computer. If I really needed to, my mom would sit next to me to monitor every second. Therefore, I was pushed to study from morning to night everyday. Gradually, my grades improved and I became one of the top 3 students in my class.

In the last day of 9th Grade, I finished my high school enrollment exams on each subject. Because I had good grades I was able to enroll in the greatest high school in Nanjing; as a reward, my mom permitted me to have a phone and to use a laptop in the summertime. I had not been able to access my email inbox for a whole year and, as such, there were a few pages of unread messages when I finally logged in. I decided to clean up my email, starting from the last page. It was then that I found a letter from Jun, sent over one year ago. I felt delighted! It was so great that he had remembered me and had tried to contact me. I opened the message.

Hey, How are you? I am sorry for everything. Actually, I lied to you, I am a girl; I use my twin brother’s name and selfie to talk to you. Anyway, hope you have a happy life…

I was dumbfounded. Twin? Was I lesbian? I did not suspect that Jun was a girl at all?

I did not reply.

I deleted the message.

I did not want to know if it was true or not, I just felt so stupid. I was also frightened to think about these questions. Maybe my mom was right; I did not really know him, or her. Things online could be fake and dangerous; fortunately, my mom stopped me, and made decisions for me so that I could focus on my study. If not, I could not imagine what would have happened. From then on I tried to keep away from strangers on QQ.

When I recall this episode now, it is hard to image almost 10 years have passed. I seldom use QQ now, and I do not have any online friends. All of my contacts in my phone or my QQ list are familiar people. Since reading the email from Jun I started to agree with my mom: the online world is different from actual life; it could hurt.

I have now been studying abroad in the U.S. for nearly five years, and, somewhat ironically, the phone has become an important communication tool for my mom and me. She can find me through a quick phone call, and when she misses me, we can have a video chat. The phone used to separate us and led us quarrels, but now the phone makes us closer.

I still remember the day I went to the airport and got everything ready for my U.S. undergraduate trip. My mom said, “Now, you are old enough to make your own decisions.”