This is the second time he has been to Beijing from his home in Henan province. His parents are peanut-and-corn farmers with a decent two acres of land. Liu has helped his parents with farmwork since he could walk, but when he was in high school he fell in love with documentary cinema and the realistic films of China's master filmmaker, Jia Zhangke.

"In 2006, he won a big prize in film. I saw in news and I thought if I had an opportunity to do film I will, and if not I will be a photographer. I can go back to Henan and open a studio doing weddings, commercial, advertising work."

But his true goals are loftier. He loves to read China's Nobel laureate Mo Yan, as well as Yu Hua, Faulkner and Tolstoy. Their books sit in a pile near his bed in the basement room.

"My generation is so different from my parents'. People of my generation are civil servants, car salesmen. No one farms anymore. And factories are coming closer and closer to our farmland, making food, instant noodles, toilet paper.

"My parents' generation lived on and depended on the land. But we have all left the land.

"Dad wanted me to be a primary-school teacher. But I thought art teachers' [salaries were] too low and they had too much free time. So I wanted to do something more."

"I learned of basement living from Jia Zhangke's film "The World," where there's a character who lives in a basement. The first basement I stayed in in Beijing was large but very humid, 700 yuan per month. After one month it was still smelly and there was water on the floor from the humidity and things got moldy. So I moved. Then I found this room. It's about eight square meters for 360 a month. I have no income, so I live here. It's OK. I do feel uncomfortable here, though. I feel a sense of fatigue. Maybe because there's no sunlight here.

"Humanity is too scary. Think about it: There's not even enough space to house us anymore above ground. We are now living underground ... There's the subway, car parks and basement homes — all underground. Is this city hollow underneath?"

On his laptop, Liu writes down his thought. On one page he writes:

The rooms upon rooms, the intricate corridors, all of it brings you a little bit closer to the direction you want to take, as you keep walking forward. At night, you can lose your way and you can't find your own unit, but each day you continue to go above and below ground, above and below ground, above and below ground.