Jin Fuzhong and Si Mingfei with their 26 adopted children.

Mornings at the Jins' four-storied house is always full of hustle and bustle.

In the courtyard, Jin Fuzhong unloads packets of flour, vegetables and fruits from the family mini-van. On the fourth floor, Si Mingfei, his wife, is busy doing the laundry. She pours piles of labeled clothes into three huge washing machines. In the dining hall, nine children have finished breakfast with their 80-year-old grandparents and wait for Jin to drive them to school. Sounds of washing, laughter and screams of a dozen children can be heard from the dormitories upstairs.

"It is more complicated tending to so many kids than leading a troop, or an orchestra," says Jin Fuzhong.

"Yet, the happiness that comes from being part of a big family is incomparable."

Forty-eight-year-old Jin is an oboist with the Liaoning Opera House, Shenyang, but in recent years, he is known less for his musicianship than for playing father to 28 children - his two sons and 26 orphans.

And the line-up expanded three months ago when the Jins took in nine 13-year-olds from quake-shattered Beichuan, Sichuan province.

"They are still not quite accustomed to the climate and particularly the cuisine here. We try to cook spicy food to satisfy their taste, but the children do not find it spicy enough," Jin laughs.

"They do not feel lonely here as there are so many other children to keep them company. We will do our best to make them feel at home till the reconstruction of their hometown is complete and they can return."

Before he took on the first seven orphans, Jin was a volunteer teacher at the Shenyang Children's Welfare House for nearly three years.

One day in 2000, he happened to drop by the home while test driving his new van. He was shocked to hear the stories that had brought the orphans to the home, especially of those with disabilities. But he also found the children very smart and talented.

Jin began to visit the welfare house once a week or sometimes, once a month, to teach the children violin and I-go. He later took his parents, wife, sons and families of his three brothers and sisters to the home. Each family decided to adopt one child. But eventually Jin returned to take home three more children.

In subsequent years, the Jin family kept adding from the home as well as from other cities and provinces, who came to know of Jin from the media.

To take better care of these 28 children, six of whom have disabilities, Si Mingfei shut down the kindergarten she had run for years and became a full-time homemaker. Jin's two older brothers chipped in, teaching the children photography, computer skills and English.

The whole family moved in with Jin's parents, who were delighted to turn their retirement villa into a children's house. Just a few weeks ago, they moved into a bigger four-story house, offered by a real estate developer at a lower-than-market rent. Jin Fuzhong has bought table tennis and billiards tables so that children can expand their interests.

The cost of raising such a big family stands at between 8,000 and 10,000 yuan ($1,168-1,460) per month. The city government eased the couple's financial pressures by granting each of the 17 orphans from the welfare house a monthly allowance of 700 yuan. Many social organizations and warm-hearted people frequent the family on weekends, bringing the children learning and living supplies.

For the Jins, the greater challenge is to help the children get along with one another. "The youngest children are eight or nine and very playful, while the oldest ones are adolescents and have a lot of ideas," Jin says. "They are all our children. We don't entitle any of them to special privileges."

Music is another magic weapon Jin uses to unite the children. Each of them has learned one or two, even three instruments, under the discipline of Jin, his classmates from the conservatory of music and colleagues at the opera house. A large part of the first floor of the house has been converted into a rehearsal room, where the children play music after school. Jin often conducts his family brass orchestra, named the Sunflower Orchestra, to give free and charity performances, which he regards as good opportunities for the children to pay back society. They have also formed two electronic bands.

"Almost all the children have passed the national degree examination for music," Jin says. "The most important thing is that they have built self-confidence in music and have learned to work and live as a harmonious team. They feel they are on a par with children from other schools."

The ties that the Jin family has forged with these children are sometimes even stronger than blood. Shen Qingyang was sent to the welfare house after she got lost. She was later recognized by her parents when Jin and the children performed in a TV program in 2005. But two months after she united with her parents, Shen Qingyang returned in tears, saying she preferred to stay with the Jins and her friends.

Like many parents, Jin wishes all his children could go to college. "If not, I will help them find a profession they are interested in," he says.

Jin conducts his family brass orchestra in rehearsal.

(China Daily)