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)

Girls during a class at the Teire Irish dance school in Moscow, Russia on March 15, 2019. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/TASS)

A girl goes to school just before sunrise in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, December 11, 2019. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Young girls practice acrobatic skills in the Sichuan Provincial Art School July 14, 2008 in Chengdu of Sichuan Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Young gymnasts practice pull-up on a bar at a gymnasium of a sports school in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province April 11, 2015. (Photo by William Hong/Reuters)

Young girls attend a training session in MGFSO Olympic reserve school in Moscow on May 30, 2016. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)

Young contortionists practice at a training school in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, July 4, 2016. (Photo by Natalie Thomas/Reuters)

Wang Zeyu, 4, a fee-paying enthusiast of kung fu, practises during a training class at a kung fu school near the Shaolin Temple April 10, 2005 in Dengfeng, Henan Province, China. Zeyu's father sent him to the school from his home in Jiangsu Province, thousands kilometres away from Dengfeng, when he was just 3 years old. And his father must pay 9,800 yuan (US$1195) for one year's tuition at the school, a huge amount for most Chinese. There are more than 80 kung fu schools that line the road from the city of Dengfeng to the Shaolin Temple with hundreds and thousands of young kung-fu lovers from all over the country and beyond studying here. All the schools use the Shaolin name to attract students as the Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Chinese Kung Fu. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images)