Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) culture was back in fashion in Beijing on Sept 19 as shoppers at the Beijing Characteristic Products Trade Fair scrambled to get their hands on TCM products from Nanyang, Henan province.

Nanyang paced a big emphasis on TCM culture in its exhibition space, and its booth was noticeably busier than most of the 300 other booths as a result.

Many of the visitors came to see Tang Zuxuan, a local physician who was named a TCM master by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2014. Tang, who has published two bestselling books on health, offered free medical consultations during the fair and gave a keynote lecture afterward.

The city also continues to attract many consumers due to its rich heritage as a center for TCM. Dengzhou city in Nanyang is the birthplace of Zhang Zhongjing, one of the founding fathers of Chinese medicine whose classic work Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases made a great contribution to the development of traditional Chinese medicine.

And TCM culture continues to flourish in Dengzhou thanks to the local government's efforts to carry it forward and develop it.

Dengzhou established a traditional medicine management bureau in the late 1980s, and enacted specific regulations to promote the medical industry. The city has since been selected as a demonstration city and a model city for traditional medicine by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

"Traditional Chinese medicine need to be further promoted, and Dengzhou has done a good job on that," said an official from Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.