Grass grows and orioles fly, and spring returns to the earth. Recently, in Hefei, Anhui Province, many citizens have visited the Garden Expo Park, strolling through seas of flowers, basking in the spring light on the lawns, or "busy flying paper kites on the east wind"... Although the 14th China (Hefei) International Garden Expo closed last December, this park hailed as "the Garden Expo at the people's doorstep" remains a popular destination for citizens to relax and enjoy the scenery. Since its completion and opening last September, the Hefei Garden Expo Park has received more than 7 million visitors from home and abroad. Whenever Chen Gang sees the bustling crowds and hears the citizens' exclamations of admiration, a full sense of achievement and pride wells up in his heart.
As the director of the Planning and Construction Division and a first-class principal staff member of the Hefei Municipal Forestry and Landscaping Bureau, Chen Gang, during the several years he participated in Hefei's bid for and preparation of the Garden Expo, always braved difficulties and dared to innovate, making outstanding contributions to the construction of the Garden Expo Park. On February 4, Chen Gang was commended and rewarded by the Central Organization Department and the Central Propaganda Department, and was awarded the honorable title of "Most Beautiful Civil Servant."
Starting from a small flower nursery, his original aspiration remains unchanged
Chen Gang's path in landscaping began with a small flower nursery.
In 1999, Chen Gang, a recent university graduate, joined the landscaping industry. The first task he received was to tend a small flower nursery. In many people's minds, growing flowers is a romantic and pleasant affair, but as Chen Gang recalls, the cultivation process involved both fragrance and sweat.
"Nowadays, when growing flowers, there are all kinds of compound fertilizers and nutrients. In the past, fertilizing flowers was not as convenient as it is now; often we had to carry farmyard manure ourselves," Chen Gang said. "During fertilization, it was common to get manure on our hands and bodies." With mud on his soles and dew on his head, day after day, Chen Gang was content with it all. "From the day I entered this industry, I knew I would be dealing with soil for a long time, and that is true of all landscapers. When the flowers along the roadsides and in the parks bloom brilliantly and citizens find them pleasing, we feel gratified too."
Over the years on his landscaping path, Chen Gang has gone from a flower nursery "guardian" to a green space "manager," and then to a landscaping planner and builder. No matter how his position changed, his plain and earnest work style has always remained. In 2019, Chen Gang became director of the Planning and Construction Division of the Hefei Municipal Forestry and Landscaping Bureau, taking on the important task of bidding for the Garden Expo.
"In more than 20 years of working in the landscaping and greening industry, the process of participating in the bid for and preparation of the 14th China (Hefei) International Garden Expo is what I remember most vividly, and the challenges were also the greatest," Chen Gang said with deep feeling when talking about the Garden Expo.
In September 2019, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development launched the selection process for the host city of the 14th China International Garden Expo. There were many bidding cities and fierce competition. From receiving the task to completing the bid, there were only two months. With tight time and heavy tasks, where should they start amid a myriad of matters? As the head of the division responsible for the specific bidding work, Chen Gang remained calm and led his team to immediately plunge into drafting the bid report.
With multiple cities bidding, how to tap local highlights and bring out Hefei's characteristics was key to the success of the bid. "Whenever we had time, our team members would hold 'brainstorming' sessions together, exchanging ideas, thinking up points, and building consensus," Chen Gang said. He and everyone pooled their wisdom to highlight the distinctive advantages of "building a people's Garden Expo in the city center" and "building a new Garden Expo on the old airport site," emphasizing the long-term plan for the sustainable use of the Garden Expo Park, and ultimately completed high-quality preliminary work including the bid report.
Hard work pays off. In March 2020, the review results were announced, and Hefei successfully won the right to host the 14th China International Garden Expo.
Facing the "big test" of building the park, starting from zero
A successful bid was only the first step; the real "big test" had just begun.
With no experience in preparing a Garden Expo, they started from zero and humbly sought advice. Chen Gang led his team in conducting in-depth research, obtaining first-hand information on the preparation work of previous host cities, sorting out the successful experiences of relevant cities, learning widely from others' strengths while highlighting their own, and then took the lead in drafting a series of documents including the overall plan for the Hefei Garden Expo and the preparation work plan. "The plans needed to be revised again and again and continuously improved. During that period, my colleagues and I worked overtime, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent construction of the Garden Expo Park," Chen Gang said.
After the overall master plan was approved in November 2021, the Garden Expo Park entered the substantive stage of full-scale construction. The deepening and refinement of the plans and the various specialized design tasks once left Chen Gang at a loss.
"The difficulties were obvious, but being afraid of them was useless. Only by treating the preparation of the Garden Expo as a cause, as scholarship, and as an enjoyment can one do it well," Chen Gang said. During that period, they persisted in firmly upholding the main theme of "ecology first, a people's Garden Expo" and consistently implemented it in the specific processes of building the park and hosting the expo.
At the end of 2021, after careful consideration, Chen Gang submitted to the Garden Expo Office three principles for the subsequent detailed design of the Garden Expo Park: first, based on its positioning as a permanent urban park, all types of buildings and structures should serve as permanent facilities, with "no walls and no admission fees," fully open and shared; second, adhere to function first, improve supporting service facilities, and arrange them around all-age friendliness, especially the needs of the elderly and children; third, adhere to appropriate blank space reservation, leaving room for the park's future expansion. Ultimately, all three principles were adopted and confirmed. Precisely because of this, citizens and visitors can now see the Hefei Garden Expo Park as it is today.
Achieving a "people's Garden Expo" with due diligence
Sticking to principles is a distinctive work style of Chen Gang. During project construction, he resolutely rejected some proposals put forward by designers that were not closely aligned with the expo theme of "ecology first, a people's Garden Expo." Conversely, for functional facilities conducive to enhancing citizens' experience of touring and enjoying the park—such as standardized layout of public toilets and rest stations in the park, and a substantial increase in public seating, weather shelters, and children's play facilities—he gave strong support.
"How is the concept of a 'people's Garden Expo' reflected? In the final analysis, it means starting from the perspective of the people, understanding what the people need and like, rather than the 'wishful thinking' of us designers and builders," Chen Gang said.
In 2022, the exhibition recruitment work for the Garden Expo Park was fully launched. Due to repeated epidemics and other reasons, on-site exhibition invitations could not be made, and a small number of cities intended to give up. After discussion, Chen Gang and his colleagues on the special task force boldly introduced the innovative practice of "online exhibition recruitment." For the design of 38 city exhibition gardens, they carefully and meticulously coordinated with the participating cities, patiently communicated, repeatedly worked through the building locations, orientations, and volumes of the city exhibition gardens, and held in-depth discussions on gardening methods, thematic elements, tapping of special features, and the connections between city exhibition gardens—fully respecting the other party's creativity while effectively embodying the construction theme of a "people's Garden Expo." For the plant cultivation design of foreign exhibition gardens, they humbly consulted professors, scholars, and frontline nursery "local experts," and after repeated verification, ensured that exotic styles were presented while preventing plants from being "unsuited to the local environment."
On September 26, 2023, the Hefei Garden Expo opened as scheduled and achieved great success. During the National Day holiday, it received a total of 2.45 million visitors, with a single-day peak of 400,000. Chen Gang and the many builders who participated in the bid for and preparation of the Hefei Garden Expo ultimately delivered an answer sheet that satisfied the public.
"He is solid, pragmatic, and down-to-earth—these are his distinctive traits. He can handle tough battles and dares to crack hard nuts, and he has strong organizational and coordination abilities." Regarding Chen Gang's selection as a "Most Beautiful Civil Servant," Zhang Jun, director of the Hefei Municipal Forestry and Landscaping Bureau, was delighted but not surprised.
"Being named a 'Most Beautiful Civil Servant' is both an honor and encouragement, as well as a spur and motivation. The most beautiful must live up to the most beautiful," Chen Gang said with full confidence about the future. Now, he has moved on to a new journey of striving to build a national ecological garden city and promoting high-quality development of landscaping and greening, and with even greater enthusiasm and a more spirited posture, he continues to contribute his wisdom and strength to Hefei's landscaping and greening cause.
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