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)

An applicant try-out during a stewardess recruiting interview for China Southern Airlines on October 12, 2006 in Beijing, China. Over 160 candidates have competed at the Beijing Region selection for a total of 15 berths in the next stage of recruitment. The China Southern Airlines launched a nationwide campaign to single out qualified stewardesses, the first of its kind to recruit stewardesses through TV shows. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Workers demonstrate outside the factory of Hua Yang Printing Holdings Co Ltd on October 30, 2007 in Shenzhen of Guangdong Province, China. Over 1,000 workers of the company have blocked the 107 State Highway where the firm is located, to protest against their employer, who owed half a month's salary to the workers. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

People play Taiji on a square on August 08, 2011 in Luoyang, Henan Province of China. People all over China mark National Fitness Day on Monday in their own ways. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

The Lotus Exhibition Center is an icon for the city of Wujin. Conceived as an addition to an existing underground building with a lake top, the center is a sculptural and ethereal lotus flower displaying the three stages of the lotus bloom life.

Relatives of a missing person scuffle with police officers on the bank of the Yangtze River, near Jingjiang, Jiangsu province January 17, 2015. A search and rescue operation was still underway after the boat capsized on January 15, leaving 22 people missing, including foreigners. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

A police officer wearing a protective mask walks past the portrait of late communist leader Mao Zedong (not pictured) at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on January 23, 2020. Large-scale Lunar New Year events in Beijing have been cancelled as part of national efforts to control the spread of a new SARS-like virus, city authorities announced on January 23. (Photo by Nicolas Asfouri/AFP Photo)