Images of mythical beasts and a legendary woman general come to her mind when 8-year-old Jocelyn Moffitt thinks of her birthplace.

"Jocelyn is captivated by tales of dragons and the general Mulan while my older daughter's perception of China comes from pictures of rural houses," Marleen Moffitt, a 53-year-old teacher from Cordova, Alaska, told China Daily yesterday.

Moffitt adopted Cadence, 11, in 1998 and Jocelyn in 2001.

The girls are part of a group of Chinese children adopted by 34 families from six countries joining a four-day trip to the youngsters' birthplace that began yesterday. The Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) organized the visit to help the children, all adopted from Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, to understand their roots better.

"My daughters and I are very pleasantly surprised to see that China is more developed compared to 10 years ago," Jeri Burman, of St George Island, Florida, said.

Burman, who works in the insurance industry, adopted two Chinese girls - Katie, 12, in 1996 and Sarah, 14, in 1998.

Families in 17 countries have adopted about 110,000 Chinese orphans who enjoy stable lives, a senior official of the MCA said yesterday in Beijing.

"We keep track of the children by asking for reports every half-year from the foreign adoption institutions involved," Liu Xiaolei, the deputy head of the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), told China Daily yesterday.

The 17 countries have arrangements on orphan adoption since 1994, and the latest partner is Italy, where families have adopted 10 Chinese orphans since last summer, according to the latest figures released by the CCAA.

Families in the United States account for a bulk of the adoptions, with about 70,000 joining American homes in the past decade. Spain follows with more than 10,000, while Canada has a similar number.

The country's first adoption law in 1992 paved the way for adoption by foreigners. The authorities set up the CCAA in 1996, when it was given responsibility for adoptions by foreign and domestic families, as well as the care of children in social welfare institutions.

"The government welcomes children adopted by foreign families to visit China and gain a better understanding of the culture of their birthplace," MCA Vice-Minister Dou Yupei said yesterday.

"Thanks to the CCAA's invitation, our daughter enjoyed her first birthday celebration in China. We adopted her when she was just an 11-month-old baby," Cindy Anderson told China Daily.

Chay Hai-tian Anderson, who was adopted by a couple from Philadelphia in 2000, celebrated her ninth birthday on Saturday in Beijing.

The American couple have also been learning Chinese with Chay and brought her to China five times to help her "understand her culture and her roots better".

Gemma V. Laarhoven and her daughter Milou, 8, traveled from the Netherlands to join the Yangzhou trip.

"When we first had Milou, she was a bit afraid of my husband, because of his big build and blue eyes. Although she couldn't understand us initially, she could point to the candy jar and her mouth to communicate with us. She started speaking Dutch in just a few weeks," Laarhoven said.

Li Juan, a professor at the institute of psychology affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said children less than three years old adapt more easily to foreign families.

Children will seek the cultural identity within their memories when they realize that they live in a new environment with people who have a different outward appearance and language, she said.

"Most of the Chinese children that the foreign families adopted are girls," Guo Jiamin, the assistant director of the Bridge of Love Adoption Service program at the CCAA, said yesterday.

The number of girls abandoned in China is higher than boys, and Chinese families in the country prefer to adopt boys, he said.

The families told China Daily the trip was just one of many ways the children stay in touch with the land of their birth.

"My daughters will have a much better knowledge of China after this trip," Marleen Moffitt said.

"And we will surely come back for more."