Over 20 orphans from Africa sang Taiwanese folk songs and performed Chinese Shaolin kungfu routines at Kaohsiung City Hall Friday, captivating an audience that included Mayor Chen Chu. The special performers, all orphaned by AIDS, are from a shelter founded by a Taiwanese Buddhist monk, Hui Li, in Malawi. They began a 21-day performing tour July 27 on the island to express gratitude to their sponsors in Taiwan. Impressed by the Malawian children's proficiency in singing songs in the Taiwanese dialect and in the martial arts, Chen pledged to donate NT$10,000 a month to the organization. The mayor praised Hui Li for not only volunteering to promote Buddhist doctrines in remote and underdeveloped villages in Africa but also for building shelters for suffering children there whose survival was threatened by hunger and disease. Hui Li founded the Amitofo Care Center in Malawi in 2001 to offer shelter, care and education for local AIDS-orphaned kids. Since then, it has sheltered more than 2,000 Malawian orphans. At City Hall, the monk expressed his thanks to the mayor for taking the time to meet him and the children and for her support. Such support inspired the group to launch the tour of gratitude in Taiwan that will also take it to Taichung, Tainan and Taipei, the monk said. Hui Li, who became a monk at the age of 23, is a trusted disciple of Venerable Master Hsing Yun, founder of the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung County, southern Taiwan. He traveled to South Africa in 1992 to build the Fo Guang Shan's Nanhua Monastery, the group's first foothold -- and the first Buddhist hub -- in South Africa. Hui Li left Fo Guang Shan in the late 1990s to start his own religious career in Africa, where Buddhism is often misunderstood as heresy. He has since been dedicated to helping African AIDS children, traveling around many African countries, including Malawi, Swaziland, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Cameroon. He has also built Amitofo care centers in Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Hui Li has been quoted as saying that he hopes to be buried in Africa and be reincarnated five times as a black monk. Over the past 16 years, he has adopted or provided care and shelter for nearly 10,000 African AIDS orphans, earning the sobriquet 'African monk,' while many children call him 'daddy sent by Buddha.' 