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Double trouble

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Why you can trust SCMP

MIRROR, mirror on the wall, does she look like me at all? Most people say they do, but the 'mirror-images' don't always agree.

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'I don't think we look alike, but others do,' said Maggie Kwok, who was born 20 minutes after her twin sister Angie 19 years ago.

Most youngsters who have an identical twin enjoy having a shadow companion. They can share their belongings, exchange clothes and secrets, and - best of all - they can get up to all sorts of tricks.

'It is great fun having someone who looks exactly like you. When we were young, some people thought they were seeing a ghost when they saw the same face just after saying goodbye to the other,' said Sally Tam, 19.

'Teachers would look at one and call the other's name, causing much laughter in class. Even our family misidentified us when we were small. We dressed in the same kind of clothes and everyone could only distinguish us by the colour of our slippers. Once we switched our slippers, they couldn't recognise who was who,' Sally said.

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According to figures from the Government's Census and Statistics Department, more than 500 pairs of twins are born each year. A total number of 1,066 twin infants were born in 1994, accounting for about 1.5 per cent of the total number of births.

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