Gao’s mother pulled over and turned off the engine, the car emitting a few reluctant beeps. Outside the passenger window, I could see the buildings had been erected atop landfill, but where they were interrupted, a cliff of earth fell away, and below that was a rocky wasteland strewn with debris and construction material. At its center stood a lone concrete house. At first glance the house looked as though it might be several floors high, until I realized the earth had been hollowed around it, scooped away from it like the base of a sculpture; the building stood atop stories of packed earth.

It looked like an odd art installation, or an image from a surrealist painting: a city melting into a puddle, a single house floating on its remains.

I asked if anyone actually lived there, and Gao’s mother said yes. ‘It’s called dingzihu,’ she explained. ‘ The government wants to take their land but they won’t move.’