Some are in it just for the money, others to help buy a meal. Then there are those who trade for fun or to spend time among friends. Millions of investors – pensioners, security guards, high-school students – dominate China's stock markets, conducting about 80 percent of all trades. Retirees gather in brokerage houses dotted around China also to enjoy some company and savour the air conditioning on hot days. Some start as young as 13, trading from home with an eye on future careers in finance. Winning isn't guaranteed. This year, among the most turbulent in China's financial history, its stock markets more than doubled in the six months to May, only to crash amid concerns that growth in the country, which makes everything from cars to steel, is slowing faster than previously thought. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Ethnic Miao women in traditional costumes take part in a tug of war as they celebrate the local ethnic Miao's new year at a village in Rongshui Miao Autonomous county, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China January 5, 2019. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)

Japanese Yuuka Hasumi, 17, and Ibuki Ito, 17, also from Japan, who want to become K-pop stars, perform at an Acopia School party in Seoul, South Korea, March 16, 2019. Acopia is a prep school offering young Japanese a shot at K-pop stardom, teaching them the dance moves, the songs and also the language. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A man takes a picture by the burning mayor’s office in Almaty, Kazakhstan on January 5, 2022. Protests are spreading across Kazakhstan over the rising fuel prices; protesters broke into the Almaty mayor’s office and set it on fire. (Photo by Yerlan Dzhumayev/TASS)

Romanian riot police detain a man, face covered in blood, after minor clashes erupted during a protest in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, February 2, 2017. Brief clashes broke out between protesters and police in Romania¹s capital, as tens of thousands of people protested for the second night a government decision to decriminalise official misconduct. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Children watch and react as a T-Rex moves and growls in an inter-active display at Field Station Dinosaurs in Secaucus, N.J on May 25, 2012. There will be 31 types of life-sized dinosaurs displayed at the Jurassic expedition that opens Saturday, May 26. (Photo by Mel Evans/Associated Press)

Like a scene from a fantasy movie, a dilapidated room that appears to have been literally ripped out of a building remains suspended in mid air above Nantes, France. Its walls were torn apart, revealing bricks below the plaster, and wood floors reveal the joists inside. The floating room is accessible via a ladder. The gravity defying surreal installation is the work of Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich. The large-scale piece, called “Monte-meubles – L’ultime déménagement” (literally - The Furniture Lift – The Ultimate Moving Out), was created for the biannual Le Voyage a Nantes, an art festival which turns the entire French city into an art gallery.

Netapp Endura team rider Slovenian Blaz Jarc (R) crashes into Katusha team rider Russian Viacheslav Kuznetsov (ground) during the 112th Paris Roubaix cycling race, in Roubaix, France, 13 April 2014. (Photo by Nicolas Bouvy/EPA)