Jin Xing with her three adopted children at home. File photos

"I had to make decisions on my own since I was only 9."

Six years in the army, two years in a PLA art college, and a half decade of working in foreign lands has made Jin a very independent individual.

"I treated my husband as my fourth child at first," she laughs. "But I have changed a lot and will listen to his ideas before making decisions now."

Like most career women, the elite dancer spends a lot of time balancing her work and home life.

In her Shanghai home, she is awoken by her children at 6:30am, and oversees them eating breakfast with a dizzy mind. She goes back to bed and gets up again at 8 to start her daily work schedule at her studio. She makes it a rule to eat supper with family every day.

Business dinners are scheduled at noon and parties must start after 9 pm, when her children are in bed.

She also is very open about her sex change operation with her children and has never hid the fact that she used to be a man. She says her oldest son, 8, has fully accepted the fact that they did not come from mom's belly.

Although the sex-change operation was 23 years ago, reporters still tag her as the "transwoman dancer", even in the lead up to Beijing's Poly Theater performances, which are held tomorrow and Wednesday nights.

"The transsexual operation was indeed a very important part of my life," Jin says.

"I will not shy from it. But if the society thinks that a good dancer can no longer make news, and only to put those words before her name can, it is the society that is shallow, not me."

Bjork has a song called Venus as A Boy, which is a word play on the phrase Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.

Jin's friends often made fun of her with the lyric. Sometimes they still call her gemen, which means "bro" or "guy", but she doesn't care.

"Call me sir, miss, lady or whatever, as long as you are comfortable with it," she says.