At times, I feel I’m living a double life.

I use facebook. And I use 微博/weibo also quite a bit, exclusively with Chinese friends (ok, Nicolas does have an account after my ‘recommendation’ but he rarely visits it so I won’t be surprised if he already forgot the password). 微博 is a Chinese equivalent of facebook and twitter combined.

After I discovered whatsapp (although I don’t use it much), I discovered 微信/wechat a few days ago. 微信is the Chinese equivalent of whatspp for mobile phone text and voice messaging communication service. Suddenly I am talking to friends in Chinese a lot more often.

Occassionally there is cross-over (mostly with Chinese living overseas like myself), but generally I live in two different worlds depending on which site I go or which app I use.

I read entirely different types of news  from my ‘English’ channels and Chinese channels – the difference is definitely not just in language. I could be reading about one particular thing whole day on 微博, while nobody on facebook even remotely mentions about it.

People care about differents things apparently. I could be publishing an exactly same update/photo on facebook and on 微博, but getting entirely different sort of comments (or getting enormous amount of comments from one, but none from the other – trust me, I did a few tests :))

I often get comments from my Chinese friends (including my own sister!!!) that I am almost a 老外 (Chinese’ way to nicknaming foreigners), yet here in Australia (and in France for that matter) I AM China (ok sometimes only).

When my mother came over to visit for three months, she shook her head when I eat raw salad and drink ice cold water. When my mother-in-law came over to visit for three months, she was marvelled that I use chopsticks to cook.

And here comes the best: Nina is such a Chinese baby for some, while 小南 looks totally 老外 for others.

Is it a blessing or a hoax that I get to live in two worlds at the same time?