American Univ. to open Korean garden with cherry trees

A Korean garden with cherry blossom trees confirmed to have been planted by Korea’s first president Rhee Syng-man 68 years ago will officially open in Washington Monday.

Rhee planted the trees at the American University campus in Washington in the hope of his country gaining independence. The garden will have 34 species of around 200 trees and plants, including cherry trees from Jeju Island identical to those planted by Rhee.

According to the university and the Korean Embassy in Washington, American University President Cornelius Kerwin, Korean Ambassador Han Duk-soo, Korea Forest Research Institute Director-General Koo Gil-bon, students and faculty will celebrate Monday the opening of the Korean garden beside the building of the university`s School of International Service.

American University is a private school established in 1893, and has one of the largest schools of international service with around 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

The school made plans for the garden because of the cherry trees from Jeju that the exiled Rhee planted on April 8, 1943. He planted four cherry trees near the School of International Service building with then American University President Paul Douglass, who worked as a missionary in Korea, representing Korean intellectuals’ hopes for independence. Three of the four trees remain alive.

With a plan to make a garden in 1997, the university asked ethnic Korean groups in the U.S. and the Korean Embassy in Washington for help in raising funds, but faced challenges as the Asian financial crisis hit Korea. The project fizzled out but gained momentum again as Louis Goodman, dean of the School of International Service who had an interest in Korean gardening, took the lead.

Goodman appealed for help to the university and Koreans, saying, “An environmentally friendly Korean garden with Rhee Syng-man cherry blossoms will rectify the wrong perception of Americans that all cherry trees are from Japan.”

Dr. Jeong Eun-ju, a U.S.-based Korean botanist and cherry blossoms expert, learned about the garden while working as a researcher at the plant science research unit of the U.S. Agriculture Department in 2008. As Jeong began to support Goodman, the project proceeded smoothly.

The final push came after verification that the “Rhee Syng-man cherry trees” were Korean with Jeong`s help.

“I was told that the cherry trees planted by former President Rhee are originally from Korea. I did a DNA analysis to verify that and found they are from Jeju,” Jeong said, “I sent the samples of the trees to the Jeju branch of the Korea Forest Research Institute and it got the same result.”

Thanks to the scientific evidence, Goodman was able to push for the project with confidence. He visited Jeju Island with Jeong to confirm the origin of the Rhee cherry trees in April last year. The Warm-temperate Forest Research Center of the Korea Forest Research Institute donated nine seedlings grafted with buds cut from the cherry trees at American University and 20 three-year-old cherry seedlings grafted with shoots of cherry trees on Jeju`s Mount Halla to Goodman.

Being attracted to "dolhareubang," or grandfather statues, and Jeongnang, branches used to be laid across the traditional gate, Goodman decided to build them together in the Korean garden. Receiving a request for support for the garden by Goodman in October last year, Ambassador Han and the Korean Culture Center in Washington contacted Jeju to donate two pairs of dolhareubang and three pairs of Jeongnang.

Goodman said Americans like smiley faces and asked for a "smiley dolhareubang." Nam Jin-soo, head of the Korean Culture Center in Washington, said, “Jeju Self-Governing Province donated a pair of 1.5-meter-high dolhareubang and the Korean Culture Center gave a pair of one-meter-high dolhareubang.”

The Korean Embassy and Jeju offered 43 species of 200 Korean trees and plants to be planted in the Korean garden. They arrived in the U.S. at the end of March but will be planted around 2013 because the quarantine period takes one or two years.

higgledy@donga.com