Despite China’s global reputation as a rapidly rising superpower, the everyday reality is a little rougher around the edges. In the bustling cities of Shanghai and Beijing, children romp in plazas while laborers rest in ancient alleyways. And in the vast countryside, Chinese Muslim shopkeepers in Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter tend to their storefronts and elderly farmers in rural Henan tend to their sheep. The diversity of their days is reflected in these pictures.