It’s quiet in the mornings. Tao Yuan Ju, or Peach Blossom Garden, is slow greet a new day during the dog-days of summer. At first glance it’s a sleepy little place, home to 50,000 people, all living within one-square mile. No one moves with any degree of speed. They saunter instead of walk. The sounds of birds are occasionally overpowered by the squeals of toddlers pursued slowly by grandparents.

The fathers, and many mothers, start the day early, heading for their factories and offices, leaving grandparents and nannies to tend to their children. While China has changed drastically in the last 25 years the basic family structure has not. It is still a cohesive unit, with three generations often living under one roof.

Much shopping is done in the morning. Fresh meat and vegetables are purchased by the grandparents that care for the children. They queue before the cash register with stalks of green vegetables, recently chopped pork and live fish.

The shop keepers stayed open late the night before and are not quick to open. In the morning they lounge before their stores on the off chance a customer will wander in. The man from the small drycleaners reads a newspaper while waiting. He spends most of the day in the same position, only going into his store when there is business to be transacted.

A clerk at a cosmetic store polishes the glass of the establishment, while the sun that just crested the hills to the east, shines on her project.

Others have a less leisurely morning. The woman selling steamed buns faces a constant stream of customers. Three times a day a horde gathers in front of her small storefront for fresh, fast food, Chinese-style.

The mauve-clad clerks at the Snowy Skin salon do exercises to dance music to get ready for the day ahead. White skin, and making it whiter, is big business in China.

An older man, collecting the discarded cardboard and Styrofoam for the local merchants, carries them to the local depot, the hot morning sun at his back.

Behind a local restaurant a woman sorts through produce. The lunch rush is four hours away, but she hunkers down over bags of vegetables, making ready for the influx of diners.

One of the numerous groundskeepers piles palms from a groomed tree dangerously high on the back of a three-wheeled motorcycle.

Below the calm surface the neighborhood is a hive of activity in the morning, if you know where to look.

Captured: August 9-21, 2006 with a Sony DSC-93A.