This Global Times reporter was stunned upon seeing the beautiful notebooks held in the hands of Ma Lingyan at the fourth Shanghai Stationery Market last Saturday.

Ma, a 28-year-old woman who is better known by her nickname Youzi (lit. pomelo), works at the marketing department of an O2O company and keeps several notebooks of her own.

In one, she writes weekly to-do lists; another records the meals she cooks; in a third, she writes short passages.

But what makes these notebooks special is the beautiful handwriting Ma uses, as well as the intricate illustrations (pictured below left and middle) she draws to accompany it. She posts images of her notes online, and has built up a large following.

The phenomenon of keeping such notebooks derives from Japan, and has become popular in Taiwan and South Korea as well. In recent years, it has become a trend on the Chinese mainland.

The phenomenon of keeping notebooks has become a trend in China in recent years. Photos: Courtesy of Ma Lingyan and Xia Huixiang

From online to offline

It was three years ago when Ma first got to know the circle of stationery amateurs through online forums.

On douban.com, China's famous SNS website, the earliest group about stationery was set up in 2009. It now has more than 116,500 members.

There have also been several new groups created in the last two years that have more than 10,000 members.

A former teacher and a fan of handwriting since her childhood, Ma was quickly immersed in the culture of stationery and became a zealous enthusiast who loves to buy notebooks, pens and other items to facilitate her hobby.

"I found keeping records in my notebooks helped me persevere with many pursuits such as physical exercise, cooking meals, as well following TV series," said Ma.

"Each time you write down a record of something, it seems much easier for you to carry on the thing and not quit."

Like many stationery enthusiasts, Ma sees keeping records in notebooks as a graceful ceremony, which adds fun to daily life.

In October of 2014, Ma initiated the first Shanghai Stationery Market with friends in this circle, and decided to promote her hobby to more people.

On Saturday, more than 3,000 people went to the market, which had about 80 booths covering the first to the fourth floor of Shanghai Mass Art Center (125 Guyi Road, 5424-4137) selling pens, inks, notebooks and decorative items for notebooks.

According to Ma, the third market she initiated in October also drew some 3,000 visitors, and saw sales of 600,000 yuan ($93,484) in one single day.

Most of the visitors were teenagers and 20-something women. Some even traveled from afar to visit the Shanghai market, and 26-year-old Liu Xuan from Beijing was one of them.

Liu is a big fan of Ma for her beautiful handwriting and her precious collection of pens. Liu himself is also a collector of pens and enjoys the process of handwriting.

He had on him his pencil case, which contains nearly a dozen of his favorite pens, ranging from the German-made Pelikan to the US-made Sheaffer's Snorkel series.

At the market, he stopped at booths that sell pens and inks, looking for special items to add to his collection.

He mostly buys pens and inks on eBay, but sometimes some famed pens don't write well, so now he prefers to try these pens and inks in person before he makes his purchase.

Multiple choices

Of all the 80 or so booths at the market, more than 70 were private business set up by individuals.

Some of them buy famous or limited-edition pens and notebooks abroad and resell them to domestic customers, and some of them have their own brands and sell original designs.

Wu Yifan is a Shanghai native who now studies in Japan. Wu told the Global Times that he was not a fan of pens and inks, but was drawn by the booming market of stationery in China and joined the business last year.

The first visitor to the market arrived at 5 am, five hours earlier than the market opened, just to buy one limited-edition pen at Wu's booth.

Before noon, Wu had sold more than a dozen limited-edition pens, the prices of which range from several hundred to several thousand yuan.

Pens, inks and notebooks in the market were limited to several famous foreign brands, chosen for their good quality.

When it came to notebook covers, decorative adhesive tapes and other accessories, a force of domestic designers joined the competition.

Xia Huixiang, a 24-year-old, is a popular vendor of adhesive tape (pictured top right) for covering notebooks.

He set up a shop on Taobao two years ago, selling tape from Taiwan. A year ago, he started to create tape that featured original designs authorized exclusively to him.

"There are many painters who post their works online, and if I like their work I'll negotiate with them to get permission to print their paintings on tape. Sometimes I can even ask them to paint images according to my specification," said Xia, whose original-designed tape can be as much as twice as expensive as some mass-produced tapes.

All of his tape is designed in China and manufactured in Japan, and usually the production run of each pattern is limited to 1,000 to 1,500 rolls. The average price of Xia's tape is 35 yuan per roll.

"I believe that the market will become larger in the future, because when material wealth becomes sufficient enough for people, they will look for something that adds fun to their spiritual life, and keeping a special notebook of one's own is a pretty interesting hobby," Xia told the Global Times.