An orchestra composed of 18 children from the Qiqihar SOS children's village in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province left Beijing for Vienna, Austria Monday. 

The Chinese folk music orchestra will play eight performances in four cities, including Vienna and Imst, and hold friendly interchanges with local SOS children's villages, said Li Xianchao, director of Qiqihar village.

Among the performances will be a presentation for Austrian President Thomas Klestil.

Xiao Bingchuan,of the National Coordination Office of SOS Children's Village, said the visit also includes the establishment of a host-city relationship between Qiqihar and Imst, where the first SOS children's village was established in 1945.

SOS Children's Village is an Austria-based non-governmental organization founded in 1945. It raises orphans.

The delegation returns to Beijing on January 28, Xiao said.

According to Li, it is the second time the group has traveled Austria. The first visit occurred in 2002 for a week.

"When I went to Austria last time, I felt I did not learn much because everything was so unfamiliar," said 14-year-old orchestra member Jiang Yang, who plays a traditional Chinese reed pipe wind instrument.

"But this time, I think it will be different," he said.

According to Xiao, there are more than 400 SOS children's villages in 131 countries. In China, the number is nine, and about 1,000 orphans live there. The first two Chinese villages were set up in north China's Tianjin Municipality and Yantai in east China's Shandong Province, in 1985. The Qiqihar village was launched in 1990 and houses about 150 children.

Xiao said Beijing will establish a SOS children's village in 2005.

Orphans in villages come from local civil affairs departments.

"The village covers all the expenses of a child until he or she gets a job," Li said.

Money is provided from SOS Children's Village funds, local governments, as well as donations from all walks of life. Within each village, children live in families, each of which has eight to 10 children.

Li said an unmarried woman is employed as "mother" to manage each family.

"There is only one difference between our families and normal ones, which is that we have more brothers and sisters," said another orchestra member Wang Xiao, 12, who plays flute.

(China Daily January 21, 2004)