It's noon on Saturday, and the air reverberates with the excited clamor of children let out of school. Mei-yueh leads her younger brother Jen-ti, who studies with her at Pinglin elementary school, back home through the narrow alleys crowded with traffic and pedestrians. Lunch is already on the table--beef braised in soy sauce, deep-sea shrimp and several dishes of stir-fried vegetables--and her other younger brother, Tien-sheng, and her little sister, Mei-ling, are waiting for them to come back.

During lunch, they fool around and make faces at each other, just like kids in any other family. But the different dialects of Chinese they speak reveal that they actually come from different backgrounds.

They are all foster children who were arranged for fostering in the same family by the Taichung Family Support Center. Ten years ago, to help children that have been unable to receive proper parental care because their families have suffered special problems or misfortunes, the R.O.C. Children's Welfare Foundation studied examples overseas and introduced to Taiwan the foster care system, in which families volunteer to take in foster children on a temporary basis. In addition to the four "brothers and sisters" in the Chang family, there are more than a dozen other children with a similar status in the neighborhood, fostered in nine other families.

Pinglin Village, Taiping Township: This "foster family village," renowned in children's welfare circles, is a neighborhood of more than 120 households situated in Pinglin Village, Taiping Township, Taichung County, as many as 15 of which were foster families at one time. During the past ten years, nearly 200 children have been fostered there, making it the community with the highest density of foster families and the largest number of successful foster cases in all Taiwan. "There are as many foster families there as in all of Taipei," says Yu Shu-chen, a worker at the Taipei Family Support Center.

It's not a place of luxurious homes or spacious yards, just an old neighborhood of private residences and housing for military dependents.

"We've all been neighbors for years. If the door's open, we just walk right in and sit down for a chat," says Mrs. Chang, whose full name is Chen Yu-chen.

"The popularity of fostering there owes its strength to traditional family lifestyles and neighborly relations," says Sung Li-hsun, the person in charge of Taiping Township at the Taichung Family Support Center. The husbands are still the bread winners in the family, and the wives stay at home to look after the children and take care of the housework. If they have any spare time, they pitch in and do some piecework to earn a little extra money on the side.

When taxicab driver Chang Kun-chuan and his wife, who have always been enthusiastic about supporting good causes, saw a report on foster families, they applied to the Taichung Family Support Center. Then the Mou's, who live across from them, and the Chao's, Liao's and Chou's, who live down the street, all decided to "take the plunge" next. "It saved us a lot of manpower on publicity," Sung Lihsun laughs.

Mother Hens: Their motives for joining the ranks of foster parents were simple.

Mrs. Chang it crazy about children but practiced family planning and had only one boy and one girl. Ever since they became a foster family, she has had a flock of kids under her wing, just what she has always longed for. Each time she leaves the house, she has four or five children in tow, chattering away on the bus or running around the department store. "I'm more delighted than they are," she says with a smile.

Mr. Mou, who was worried that his wife would be lonely now that his children have grown up and left the nest, encouraged her to look after foster children just like Mrs. Chang.

And the Chao's and Sun's, who were rather well to do anyway, acted purely out of a desire to help and to do well.

According to regulations established by the Ministry of the Interior, any husband and wife can apply to be foster parents so long as they are between 30 and 55 years of age, have been married for more than three years, get along well, are of upright character, earn a steady income and have enough space at home.

But taking in foster children isn't like donating to charity or building a temple, which require only a single gush of enthusiasm. Shortly after the simple and joyous idea of doing good comes the nitty gritty reality of caring for the child over a long period of time.

"Think about it. A complete stranger suddenly joins the family. Everyone has to adjust their pace of life," says Ho Su-chiu, director of planning and development at the R.O.C. Children's Welfare Foundation. "And children that require fostering often have tragedies in their backgrounds or have lacked proper care and upbringing, so they're liable to have mental and behavioral problems." The most common, she says, are low self-esteem, the feeling of having been "left on a doorstep," and the fear of being rejected. Some children exhibit hostile behavior, resisting or rejecting their foster families.

In her experience, foster parents all too often receive a child with hearts full of love and hope but soon enough send the child back with feelings of frustration and dismay. "Failed cases of fostering are often caused by a lack of skills and patience on the part of the foster parents," Ho Su-chiu says. In that case, the families may be afraid to take any more cases, and the children may be kicked around from family to family, wounding their psyches yet further.

Boot Camp: Besides a high concentration of foster families, a much lower rate of failure compared with other areas is another big feature of the Pinglin's "foster family village." According to the Taichung Family Support Center, only one case has occurred of a family's foster qualifications being terminated there, because of corporal punishment.

"Finding other children who have encountered similar problems helps the children overcome low self-esteem and relieves some of their adjustment problems," Sung Li-hsun says.

That's the best thing for foster children about Pinglin Village--being able to feel completely at ease--since the residents are used to them and treat them matter-of-factly, like anyone else. In addition, the foster families encourage and support one another and pass on valuable experience in learning to care for children with unfortunate backgrounds.

The Chang's, for instance, who were the first to become foster parents, have become an "instructional boot camp"--and not just for new foster parents. Since they're so outgoing and personable, rich in experience and adept at breaking through a child's "psychological defenses," Sung Li-hsun often sends children to the Chang's first so they can see how fostering works and adapt to the local environment before being "parceled out."

Mrs. Sun, who used to be a childcare worker, is an expert at child guidance. And Mr. Mou and Mr. Chao, both teachers, are good at helping children with their schoolwork. They and their families have become mainstays of the foster family community.

Strong Support System: Mrs. Ning, who has been a foster parent for only a year, has come to appreciate the value of these support systems.

The first case she received was a little girl whose father had scalded her arms with boiling water. She was rather refractory when she first arrived, perhaps from over-fright. "We thought about giving up several times," Mrs. Ning says. "Fortunately, there were people there to guide us, so we took it step by step." Today, under her meticulous care, not only have the scars on the child's arms healed, she's also learned to help out at home. Seeing it rain, she promptly hands her "mother" an umbrella, warming the cockles of Mrs. Ning's heart.

Although there are rewards as moving as this, the problems of the family in today's society have become more complex, and the cases handled by the Family Support Center have changed from families stricken by poverty or misfortune to ones of single-parent families, parents with mental illness or child abuse. It makes the work that much harder.

"Some child abuse is brought on by bad behavior, which is reinforced by improper methods of child-rearing, creating a vicious cycle," Ho Su-chiu says. The responsibilities of foster parents in a case like that isn't limited to caring for the child's daily needs. They also have to correct the child deviant behavior, so they need to employ extra skill and energy.

At Least Someone Cares: The 50 or so foster children raised by the Chang's have indluded mentally handicapped children, seriously abused children and other problem children. "One kid was so clever he broke the code for the safe and swiped the money inside," Mr. Chang says, shaking his head and smiling bitterly. The way to deal with such problems, he says, is to "talk it over with agency personnel and learn from experience."

Three years ago, he recalls, his family took in a child that had been tied to a chair by its parents for many years on end. "He was three years old when he came here and couldn't say a word. What's worse, he had sat on a chair so long he didn't know how to sleep in a bed." They had to let him sleep on the carpet at first and then straighten out his arms and legs after he had fallen asleep. Once he had grown accustomed to sleep lying down, they moved him onto a bed. "The whole process took about six months before he was willing to go into his room and sleep on a bed."

Mrs. Sun currently has two children that give her lots of headaches. One is a homeless child that grew up on the streets with its father, and the other is the child of an unwed mother. Without a proper upbringing, they've caused her no end of trouble, fighting at school and stealing, and Mrs. Huang is barely able to cope. She arranged for them to be in the same class so they can serve "concurrent sentences" and be watched after at the same time. Even so, Mrs. Huang constantly receives calls from their teacher.

"Fortunately, children are pretty sensitive deep down and can sense well-intended care and concern," she says. Even if her efforts can't completely change the children around, "at least they'll know there are people who are concerned about them and truly care."

Auntie, I Miss You!: Easy to say, but only those who've been through it can appreciate how tough it is. "When I first met the ladies, they were all rosy and plump," Sung Li-hsun quips.

After several years of "trials and tribulations," they've all "lost their figures." But "whenever I get a phone call from a foster child of mine that they 'miss Auntie' or thanks from their real parents," Mrs. Chao says, "the aches and pains of caring for them disappears at once!"

It offends them that some people consider caring for foster children a "sideline occupation." The financial assistance provided by the government is only NT$7000 or so a month (NT$5000 a month last year) per child, and that has to cover the exoenses of food, shelter, clothing, transportation, education and recreation.

"I'd make a lot more as a babysitter," Mrs. Sun says indignantly.

Kuo Yao-tung, the director of the Taipei Family Support Center, cries foul for them, as well. "Foster parent subsidies indeed higher in countries with good social welfare systems. In some states in the U.S., the supplement a parent receives for taking in a couple of foster children is enough to support the whole family. But in Taiwan, they receive just a token in comparison with what they put out."

Focusing on Neighborhoods: Without their intending it, the success of the "foster family village" of Pinglin has gradually attracted the attention of social workers, and some have applied for funds for a case study of the village.

"As far as I know, no other examples of similar communities have been found overseas," says Kuo Yao-tung, who made a special visit to the United States 12 years ago to study the fosterage system there. Perhaps the phenomenon has occurred in Taiwan because neighbors live close together and closely interact and influence one another. Cases of three or four foster families living on the same street or in the same apartment building have appeared in other areas, such as Fengshan, Chungli, Taoyuan and Keelung. "Maybe that's a direction we can develop in," Ho Su-chiu says excitedly.

But the situation may not be as upbeat as she seems to think.

"It's dumping trash!" a teacher at Pinglin Elementary says in an agitated voice. Since foster children of school age in the local school district all study there, "the proportion of mentally handicapped and problem children has greatly increased."

"It's a problem of allocating educational resources," the school's dean, Chen Yao-po, says tactfully. Pinglin Elementary has set up a class for slow learners, he points out, but teacher manpower is limited and they can't handle too many pupils. "Why aren't foster children evenly distributed to each community?"

The rights and wrongs of it aren't going to be settled overnight. "Let's make a case study and evaluate the positive and negative impacts first," the Family Support Center says.

Doing Their Bit: From the standpoint of the child, family fostering has been proven to be more beneficial to the child's mental and physical development than being kept in an orphanage or similar institution. And from an economic standpoint, "when enthusiastic families take care of fostering services, only part of the cost needs to be supplemented," say Lan Tsai-feng, an expert in child welfare. "Compared with the enormous expenses for buildings, equipment, personnel and maintenance needed by large-scale foster agencies, it's a more economical system and a necessary trend of development."

Caring for children and enabling them to grow normally is one of the prime functions of the family, school and community. As Kuo Yao-tung puts it, isn't it high time we all did our bit for children stricken by misfortune?

[Picture Caption]

Parental affection isn't limited to blood relations. Mrs. Ning, who has been a foster parent for only a year, has already established a warm bond with her charges.

This small neighborhood in Pinglin village, Taiping Township, Taichung County, has become known as a "foster family village."

Mrs. Chang has each of her four foster children maintain a small savings box to keep their spending money and build up the habit of saving.

Brothers by destiny, despite coming from different families.

The foster children in Pinglin Village all study at Pinglin Elementary School.

Workers from the Family Support Center make regular home visits to talk things over with foster parents (second from left is Yang Chin-hsing, third from left Sung Li-hsuan, Mrs. and Mrs. Chang are on either side).

Six-year-old Mei-ling, who has been a foster child with the Chang's for nearly two years, is becoming more and more lively and outgoing.

This small neighborhood in Pinglin village, Taiping Township, Taichung County, has become known as a "foster family village.".

Mrs. Chang has each of her four foster children maintain a small savings box to keep their spending money and build up the habit of saving.

Brothers by destiny, despite coming from different families.

The foster children in Pinglin Village all study at Pinglin Elementary School.

Workers from the Family Support Center make regular home visits to talk things over with foster parents （second from left is Yang Chin-hsing, third from left Sung Li-hsuan, Mrs. and Mrs. Chang are on either side）.

Six-year-old Mei-ling, who has been a foster child with the Chang's for nearly two years, is becoming more and more lively and outgoing.