Keeping in touch With Family Overseas
We all have our own favourite ways of keeping in touch with loved ones who live in different countries. Until fairly recently, that choice would have been limited to letters, postcards and the odd phonecall. Now, it is almost as easy to keep in touch with people from China as it would be if you were still living in your home country. I am going to give an overview of the different tools and services I have used to stay in contact with friends and family in the UK. I know I hve discussed some of thse services in earlier posts, but this is a goodplace to bring everything together without trawling through my site.
Instant Messaging
Instant messaging is free, real time text and audio chat between two or more computers on the Internet. Adults often fail to appreciate instant messaging, because they think it is responsible for bad grammar, poor concentration and cyber bullying. MSN, GTalk and Yahoo Messenger are free and convenient for young people to maintain international friendships using text and audio conversations.
Skype (http://www.skype.com)
Skype allows you to make Internet phonecalls that are free to other members of this network. Calls to regular telephone lines are also as cheap as a few cents per minute. However, you need to be on a reliable and fast Internet connection to achieve good quality calls. Skype also supports the use of text and webcams.
IP Phonecards
IP cards are prepaid cards that allow you to make international phone calls from China, but I have always found them to be very expensive compared with other methods. You do not need a computer to make use of these cards, but I will only buy them as a last resort.
Gizmo5 (http://www.gizmo5.com)
Gizmo is very similar to Skype, except that it is not as popular or as easy to use. However, there is a free piece of software that has been released for my cellphone PDA that allows me to make cheap international phonecalls when I am away from a high speed Internet connection. You need to have a compatible cellphone and an account with Gizmo that has prepaid credit on it. When you want to make a call you choose your number and the service triggers a callback to your phone. It is a little more expensive than using Skype, but calls to the UK are only 5 cents a minute and the call quality is very reasonable.
Call2.com (http://www.call2.com)
This is another callback service that is similar to Gizmo except you have to logon to a website or send a text message to initiate a call.
Facebook and Myspace
A lot of students also like to use social networking sites to write messages with friends who are living overseas. I did not appreciate th power of Facebook until I used it to find an old friend that I had not spoken to for nearly eight years. He is now living in Malaysia.
Moonpig (http://www.moonpig.com)
Moonpig is a a website that allows you to choose, personalise and send greetings cards to people in the UK. Moonpig offers a next day delivery service. Cards are a little more expensive than buying them in a high street shop, but this service is a good way of sending messages to people like grandparents who may not be connected to the Internet.