Nobel winner's home becomes instant attraction

Tu Youyou's former home in the old town of Ningbo, Zhejiang province. [Photo/IC]

"Chinese people believe in exams and awards and have a strong preference for high performers. Taking children to visit the former dwelling places of celebrities is a way to inspire them to study harder," Xu said.

Something similar happened after Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2012.

Tourists started visiting Mo's former home in rural Gaomi, Shandong province, in an endless stream starting the day after he won the prize. Some even plucked the radishes planted in front of the house and carted away some bricks.

Tu's former residence, where she lived until she went to university in Beijing, covers an area of 2,200 square meters and is priced at 150 million yuan ($23.6 million).

The house was built by her maternal grandfather, Yao Yongbai, who was once a member of the Ningbo General Chamber of Commerce and a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University. It is owned by her uncle Yao Qingsan, an economist and former president of the Ningbo-Hong Kong Fellowship Association.

Another site that has become a bigger tourist draw these days thanks to Tu's success is the Luofu Mountain scenic area in Huizhou, Guangdong province, where Ge Hong, a TCM master of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-340) picked herbs, developed herbal medicines and wrote the classic Manual of Clinical Practice and Emergency Remedies.

After winning the Lasker Award in the United States in 2011, Tu said she and her team were inspired by Ge's theory to solve the puzzle in extracting artemisinin from the herb Artemisia annual, also known as sweet wormwood.

A garden and a monument on Luofu Mountain commemorate Ge's dedication. The mountain is home to 3,000 species of plants, including more than 1,200 with medicinal uses.