Korean Garden in American College

3 min readFeb 16, 2020

It might come as a surprise that in the early 2010s, a period where Korea was not well known, there was a Korean Garden at one of the well-known colleges in the DC Metro Area, American College. It all started during the Korean War, specifically April 4, 1943.

Rhee Syngman, the first President of South Korea (not voted, appointed by the U.S.), was exiled (ran away) from South Korea due to the condition of the war. He went to the American College during his exile to plant 4 cherry blossom trees to signify his wish for South Korean Independence. Then… well, the school forgot about that for a few decades. Mistaking to be a Japanese cherry blossom like the other in the area, even though there was a rumor that it was Korean. Adding more, the size ratio of the blossom of the Japanese tree to the Korean tree was like a cherry to a ping pong ball. To see if this was actually not true, as no record was left of Rhee Syngman planting, they used the trees’ DNA and compared to the South Korean’s, specifically Jeju island.

The result came out as same, proving once and for all that those three (one died) trees were Korean. To celebrate this fact, the College decided to make a Korean Garden. Completing in 2013.

This would not be possible in the first place without one person, you might guess it might be Rhee Syngman, the dean of American College, or even the scientists for the DNA test, however, it’s a French missionary.

While visiting Korea and spreading the word of Jesus Christ, he realized that the blossoms of the Japanese tree and the Korean tree was different. Without him, we would not even have guessed that there was a different type of cherry blossoms.

Finally, after the construction of the garden, the Jeju Self-Governing Province and the Korean Embassy gave multiple Korean cherry blossom trees and a Dolhareubang, famous statues in Jeju.