I just arrived in Beijing a couple of days ago and am still catching up on the time change, so when I woke up ridiculously early one morning last week, I decided to take advantage of it and watch American Football on my computer.

I spent a lot of time trying to find the game, cursed when the feed would stall and I'd have to find another that worked but finally settled in and was able to watch the contest of my choice.

And as I watched my team, the San Diego Chargers, beat the Philadelphia Eagles, it occurred to me how bizarre it was that I was sitting here in Beijing, watching on my computer live football being played in San Diego.

I think back to my first time in Beijing, where the only contact I had with my home and family was one short phone call and a series of letters that would take three weeks to receive.

My letters home were a series of scrawls pen-written on tissue-thin paper to save on postage. I wrote a lot of letters because I missed my friends and family, and writing letters felt like a way of summoning them closer.

Now? I send an email. Or a text. Or "chat"on Yahoo. Or use my cell to call if it's really urgent. Or use Skype. Instantaneous or near-instantaneous communication is mine if I want it.

There has been endless discussion of the impact of living in a wired world; on how it has led to exchanges of ideas on the one hand and increased opportunities for misunderstandings on the other.

The nature of an open platform is that the quality of information is unreliable and that individuals feel free to express themselves in ways that most would hesitate to do in face-to-face encounters. I'm often astounded by the level of vitriol on the Internet and how dialogue so frequently devolves into cyber-shouting matches.

But what interests me at the moment about living in a wired world is how it has changed the perception of "home."

In a way, this ability to communicate instantly with almost anyone, to access your family, friends and culture at will, has unmoored us from the bonds of "home"as a physical place. I can be here in Beijing, and if I miss my friends and family, I can contact them. Not the same as getting together for a non-virtual dinner, but infinitely better than no contact at all.

Meanwhile, in the physical world, I see pieces of my "home"all over Beijing – Starbucks, Ikea, hamburgers, sports bars, DVDs of American television, and Westerners like myself everywhere on the streets.

I think of my time here 30 years ago and I'm still astounded. There was none of this at all. The US and China were totally separate worlds, isolated by geography and decades of political antipathy.

Conversely, a Chinese person living in the US can go to, say, parts of Los Angeles and wonder how pieces of China were somehow transported whole to southern California. The signs, the stores, the language heard on the street – if it weren't for all the taquerias, you might think you were in Beijing.

Have a craving for authentic Sichuan cuisine? No problem. You'll have many choices. Hunan food? Check. Need DVDs of your favorite Chinese television series? We've got those too.

Not too long ago, when people moved across oceans and left their old homes behind, the only way to bring "home"with them was to build what they could of it in their new country, cultural transplants that may or may not take root in unfamiliar soil.

However, the wired world has given those of us with sufficient resources the ability to do something unprecedented in human history – to be "at home"in more than one physical place. To maintain two separate households that are, in a sense, made one by technology.

What does it mean to have a population of people who are at home in two worlds? I think that it takes living in both worlds, not just shouting across a digital divide, to promote real cultural understanding. Only by having a foot in both places, not just digitally but on solid ground, can a person really understand what another country is like.

Perhaps that understanding will be incomplete and fragmentary, but it is a step in the right direction.

The author is a writer who first lived in China in 1979 and has since returned many times