Mo is a student of Kong Feng, the 32 year-old Beijing-based professional pick-up artist (Feng he says he’s also happy with “dating expert” or “attracting artist”) who founded the PUA Space school two years ago. He was inspired by noticing a growing demand on internet forums for advice about how to meet and interact with girls in China, the 1.3 billion population of which has a 108:100 man to woman ratio and a much-written about ‘singles crisis’. He usually has five or six other full-time pick-up artists on the company’s books.

Hiring a guru such as Feng is far from the only way young men in China have moved to address the killer combo of a gender imbalance and a culture that tends to look unkindly on casual dating. Enormous ‘singles conventions’ take place regularly across the country. These feature thousands of 20-somethings, often accompanied by parents concerned their offspring will end up left on the shelf in their dreaded late-20s, being ferried around exhibition centres in the hope of a match.

Imagine the boozy shag-fest these conventions would turn into if they were held in the UK. I reported from one in Shanghai last year and it was far from that; it was full of meek, socially awkward guys getting tips from on-site psychologists about how to treat women. Normal guys who needed help, perhaps in the form of a fun, young guy like Feng rather than an older professional psychologist.