Discovering Beijing through bicycling

Running through the haze becomes first Chinese lesson

My resolve wavered a bit, but I stood firm, when one interviewee asked to make initial contact on WeChat - known in Chinese as Weixin. Whatever happened to phone calls or even instant messaging on Tencent QQ? The means of reporting were definitely changing, I thought as I watched one Chinese colleague conduct an interview on WeChat, asking questions via short voice messages and receiving similar responses.

Then, this spring, I got engaged and started planning my wedding back home. Many wedding vendors in Manila, such as gown designers, makeup artists, planners, florists and musicians, now prefer to use smartphone messaging apps to communicate with clients overseas.

One planner I met, Bernalyn Yap, can be found on three IM services and six messaging apps, including Line (a product of Japan that claims 420 million users) and Kakao Talk (South Korea, 140 million). I was surprised to learn that she also uses WeChat, which she discovered at a wedding planners' conference in Beijing this March.

"I mainly use it to get in touch with business colleagues and friends from Beijing," she says in an e-mail. The various messaging apps, Yap says, are "very helpful and cost-efficient" for businesswomen like her who have clients living abroad.

I eventually gave in. Overnight, I installed WhatsApp (the leader of the pack, a US company reporting 500 million users), Viber (Japan, 300 million) and of course, WeChat. Some days, the beeping of incoming messages gets overwhelming, but the apps do facilitate quick communication and cost practically nothing.

Besides helping me to discuss business with wedding vendors, the apps have also enabled me to chat with family and friends all over the world. They include a former Chinese roommate working in South Africa, a 62-year-old aunt who beat me to Viber by a year and a 2-year-old niece who cannot read or write but knows how to send photos and smileys.

I've realized that the apps are particularly handy when you're traveling overseas. A Pakistani journalist friend ran out of cell phone credit while visiting Shanghai last week, but she had hotel Wi-Fi and was able to ask me travel-related questions on WhatsApp.

Animated stickers also make the apps fun. After all, who can resist the image of a dancing Garfield, a snoring Hello Kitty or Spiderman spinning heart-shaped webs?