Every year, a number of Chinese undergraduates from urban teacher universities are selected as volunteer pre-service teachers to teach in schools located in underdeveloped rural areas. In this qualitative case study, the researchers explore four pre-service teachers' 1-year experience as volunteer educators in rural schools, their communities of practice in the south and west of China, and present their reflections on the challenges, including how their responses (re)shaped their teacher identity. It is found that these pre-service teachers have built their social capital through rural teaching experience, and they have begun to construct their professional teacher identity within that transitional community of teaching practice. The paper contributes to discussions of pre-service teacher education and pre-service teacher identity construction in the context of secondary education in rural China and in other parts of the world.