If Huang Chunyan had to choose between cooking and welding as a pastime, she says it would be an easy choice. She would pick the latter.

She is also a young mother of a 3-year-old girl, and she's shy when answering a question on which one gets more attention – the gas wells or her daughter. Because the answer is fairly clear: the former.

Most people, especially those with college degrees, go into traditional fields such as medicine, engineering or banking. But here's a group of well-educated young people that has chosen a different career path.

Gao Ling tastes a cup of baijiu from a wine jar at the factory at Anhui Yingjia Distillery Co in Lu'an, Anhui province, April 25, 2017.

The pictures are an up-close snapshot of the employees who are dedicated to producing shale gas and spend more time on the field than the time they spend with their families.

Zhou Shuyun in a special outfit in the lab on April 26, 2017.

The fruit of labor by Yu Yunle, who jokingly describes himself as a "farmer in the city", is shared by hundreds of thousands of people.

As an emergency room doctor, you never know what's coming through that door. It could be someone with stab wounds, a baby in distress, bus accident victims or an elderly man with pneumonia.

Ning, who currently works on the third-stage of construction on the Beijing Metro Line 8, has been involved in four subway construction projects in the city since 2009.