As a young woman in one of China’s most economically stagnant cities, Ma Yingge has adopted what she calls a “Buddhist” attitude. The word she uses, foxi, literally means Buddhist, but has recently been embraced by young people to express a “generalised attitude of apathy toward career, society and even themselves”, according to China’s (disapproving) state media.

Ma explains that the expression means “not forcing anything”. “My character is like that,” she says. “I don’t set my goals too high. That would be tiring.”

The attitude is a helpful one in China’s north-east, also known as Manchuria, a region of 100 million people that is squeezed between North Korea, Inner Mongolia, Russia and Japan.