A woman colors in an illustration on the walls at the Beijing International Book Festival on August 26, 2015. Photo: IC

Last year, coloring book Secret Garden ignited a coloring fad among adults in China. Following in the footsteps of this trend, this spring a series of original Chinese coloring books are set to hit bookstores across the nation. However, where Secret Garden was focused on "relieving stress," books like Chinese Dermatoglyphic Patterns, Coloring Traditional Patterns and One Belt and One Road: Painting Dunhuang have their sights fixed on promoting traditional Chinese culture.

While adult-targeted Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book was an amazing phenomenon last year, at the beginning of this year the book had already fallen from the top of the list of Amazon's best sellers to No.555 in China. Meanwhile, the import of these types of books into China has also seen a slowdown.

Tang Yinghong, a social psychologist, explained that the popularity of coloring books was actually somewhat of an accidental social phenomenon, as such it would be difficult for publishers to strike pay dirt once again if they just continued to follow the trend without making any alterations. 

Like gardening and walking dogs, coloring is a simple form of entertainment, Tang explained. Because consumers tend to look for things that can help continually satisfy their spiritual needs, the simplicity of coloring worked against it and led to a cool down for the coloring book market.

There are also those who have doubts about the value of these coloring books.

Shen Hena, a psychology professor at Fudan University, expressed her doubt about colorings ability to "relieve stress."

"The real way to reduce pressure is by building up connections, communicating with other and then facing it. It is not something that can be solved by coloring alone," she said.

In August of last year, a bookstore in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, took Secret Garden off shelves because it lacked "cultural nutrition." Store manager Liu Erxi announced that his hope was that the books they sell would allow readers to get more in touch with culture rather than just help them release stress.

In an effort to expand the content of coloring books and promote traditional culture, the Forbidden City Publishing House launched the first book in its Painting the Forbidden City series in October. Two more books in the series are expected to be published this year.

The following month, the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House published Ancient Animals, which features depictions of the mythical creatures seen in the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas. 

Of course making this transition towards "culture over stress relief" is not just a matter of choosing a bunch of random pictures from Chinese history.

Zhu Yong, an employee with the Palace Museum, pointed to Painting the Forbidden City as an example. He explained that there are just too many patterns within the Forbidden City for them to choose from and finding the right ones to adapt to a coloring book requires a keen eye.

With this move towards culture, publishers hope to once again reignite the coloring book trend, but whether this can truly bring new vitality to the market remains to be seen.
Newspaper headline: Filling in the past