Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden (SCBG) is a smart botanical garden of China and a house of 10000 distinct plant species of East China. I was lucky enough to visit the garden and join a training course "Botanical Garden Development and Management" held at Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden. It was a great honour to be ｓｅｌｅｃｔed as a trainee from Bangladesh, working as a conservation worker in a small non-profit organization known as 'Plant Conservation and Research Foundation' (PCRF). It was a 20-day intensive training course organized by the International Association of Botanic Gardens (IABG), IABG-Asia, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, and Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden from 28 August to September 2018.

There were 20 trainees from 15 different countries across Asia that participated in the program. The training focuses on a wide range of subjects regarding botanical garden development and management. The teachers of this training course were experienced and renowned people in different sectors. Among them, I give special thanks to Dr. HU Yonghong, Director of SCBG and YE Jianqiu for their outstanding speech and delivery that still whispers in my ear.

What impressed me most was that this course contained a wide range of fieldwork and exploration of SCBG along with different botanic gardens in China. For the fieldwork, we visited and stayed at Tianmu Moutain. I was amazed by the location and scenic view of that mountain. There we explored the mountain, got hands-on training on how to collect specimens for the herbarium, and learned about technologies to conserve the herbarium specimens. We also learned about how technologies linking in situ living plant population with ex-situ plant collections. 

While exploring the SCBG and learning the conservation and management techniques of plant species, I was surprised and amazed at seeing the large conservatory. It was an outstanding opportunity to see and learn the process and management technologies of ex situ conservation.  

During the training course, we joined an International Ethnobotanical show organized by SCBG where I displayed the traditional uses of medicinal plants of Bangladesh and the traditional dress of Bangladesh. For me, this course boosted up experience and changed my views and way of thinking in conservation aspects. This course gave me an opportunity to develop an international network among the trainees from different countries in Asia.

SCBG with the theme of 'Plants and Health' makes a special botanical garden among the global botanical gardens. I give special thanks to Ms. Shubo Huang, Horticulture Training Coordinator and her associate Ms. Amanda for warm welcome and hospitality throughout the training course. I also express the deepest gratitude on behalf of my organization to IABG and SCBG to organize this type of international training course.