Jeju cherry trees: force for peace

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Donald Kirk

Jeju cherry trees: force for peace

Posted : 2023-08-10 16:35

Updated : 2023-08-10 16:35

By Donald Kirk

Australian anthropologist Grant McCall had a vision for peace that extended from the south Pacific to the Korean Peninsula. A symbol of his quest for goodwill and tranquility in Korea was the Jeju King Cherry tree. And his dream of the way to pursue peace was to plant some of them in and around the resort area of Wonsan on North Korea's southeastern coast.

Grant's dream was no doubt impossible while the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, insisted on engaging in rhetorical threats and ordering missile tests. Still, Grant was optimistic. Why not, he suggested, run cruise boats from that new base on Jeju's southern coast all the way up the east coast to the port of Wonsan, where Kim is ordering the construction of a much-enlarged tourist complex not far from his own palatial home by the harbor?

Grant's notion seemed whimsical, if not farcical, but the long-range future of North-South relations is unpredictable. Might Grant's dream come true 10 or 20 or more years from now? Don't rule it out. In the twists and turns of modern Korean history, we've had no end of surprises, not all bad. Sadly, Grant will never know. He died shortly after a Zoom conference at which I read, and enlarged on, a statement by him about those cherry trees.

"The Jeju King Cherry tree, also known as Wangbeotnamu, is a symbol of peace, nutrition and sweetness," Grant wrote. "Previously it was thought to be the same as the Japanese cherry tree, but they are genetically distinct." Like those famous Jeju tangerines, King Cherries "thrive on the slopes of Mount Halla, a dramatic symbol of Jeju World Peace Island."

Grant sought to distinguish between the Jeju King Cherry tree and "the more common Japanese Yoshino Cherry tree." A study, he wrote, had revealed in 2011 that cherry trees planted at American University in Washington were Yoshino trees of the sort the Japanese in 1912 had presented to the U.S. and planted around the tidal basin of the Potomac River in Washington.

The story, however, does not stop there. Louis Goodman, retired dean of American University's School of International Service, points out that in 1943 Syngman Rhee planted four Yoshino cherry trees on the AU campus.

Rhee, who returned to South Korea with the blessing of the victorious Gen. Douglas MacArthur after the Japanese surrender of 1945, "declared that Japanese assertions that Yoshinos were Japanese were incorrect," Goodman has told me. "Since then, with the cooperation of the Korean Forestry Service, a grove of these trees has been planted on our campus and, in 2011 a replacement for one of the original four (which had died) was gifted to AU by Korea's Ambassador Han Duck-soo."

Goodman elaborated on the origin and heritage of the cherry trees in a lengthy article tracing the history of the controversy. The article quotes the AU student newspaper, The Eagle, as reporting "considerable attention" at the original planting focusing on what to call them.

Since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, according to the paper, "attempts have been made to use several different names," the most successful of which had been "Oriental Blossoms." AU President Paul F. Douglass was reported as stating that the Koreans "had furnished proof that the trees were really of Korean origin and should rightfully be known as Korean Cherry Trees."

Considerable scientific research has focused on the differences between Yoshino and King Cherry trees, and a "Korean garden" now adorns the AU campus. Ko Chang-hoon, professor emeritus at Jeju University and a driving force behind the movement to promote the significance of the cherry trees, quotes Ambassador Han, dedicating the garden in 2011, as saying he hoped visitors would "truly feel the landscape of Korea." It would, he said, serve as "a reminder and inspiration to the future generations of Koreans and Americans of the bonds" between Korea and the U.S.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Korea Forest Research Institute "confirmed that the trees, like those on the Tidal Basin, shared genetic material with the wild cherry trees of Jeju Island," according to Ko. "Although Americans had long assumed the trees were of Japanese origin," said Ko, "it turned out they were from Jeju."

If only Grant McCall had lived, he would be calling for another momentous show of appreciation for the Jeju King Cherry tree: the planting of groves in North Korea. Appropriately, the first such grove should be named for Grant in memory of his dedication to the Jeju World Peace Island bio-diplomacy initiative. Or, as Ko Chang-hoon suggests, Wangbeotnamu Diplomacy and International Peace ― the Wangbeotnamu and the Nonviolence Movement.

Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, author of "Okinawa and Jeju: Bases of Discontent," covers the confrontation of forces in Asia from Washington and Seoul.