Primary school students write Chinese character “Ren”, meaning “human being”, during the First Writing Ceremony, a traditional education activity, on September 6, 2023 in Qingdao, Shandong Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Models wait backstage ahead of their presentation of creations from the YINMU collection by designer Wei Jiang during the China Fashion Week in Beijing, China, 26 October 2020. The fashion event runs from 24 October to 01 November 2020. (Photo by Wu Hong/EPA/EFE)

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)

Women perform square dancing at a park square in Beijing, China, April 9, 2015. Chinese-style square dancing is running circles around other hobbies for the elderly, with millions taking to parks and plazas across China, swivelling their hips and rolling their arms – but it's not to everyone's liking. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Hostesses wait to direct delegates to their buses and hotels after the opening session of the CPPCC, or Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, in Tiananmen Square outside the Great Hall of the People on March 4, 2024 in Beijing, China.China's annual political gathering known as the Two Sessions will convene leaders and lawmakers to set the government's agenda for domestic economic and social development for the year. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

This photo taken on March 10, 2023 shows a panda playing with one of its twin cubs at the Sibao Science Park in Xian in China's northern Shaanxi province. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

The Monse collection is prepared backstage during Fashion Week, Friday, February 7, 2020, in New York. (Photo by John Minchillo/AP Photo)

Local villagers ride a local coal powered steam train on March 27, 2015 at a station in the town of Shixi , Sichuan Province, in Southern China. While China boasts the world's most extensive high-speed rail infrastructure with over 16,000 kilometers of track, the Shixi-Bagou railway is still a primary connection for local villagers between towns and is kept alive by tourist cars carrying passengers for ten times the price. The rail line came into service in the late 1950s and the train was initially used to transport coal from a now-shuttered mine before passenger carriages were added. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)