We have studied the effect of the chemical composition of the ZnO nanorod surface on the optical characteristics. The surface was treated with H- and O-plasma at different surface temperatures. The chemical composition of the surface of the ZnO nanorod, being investigated by Auger Electron Spectroscopy(AES), was related to the Photoluminescence(PL) data reported in our previous results. The AES showed the opposite results for the $H_2$ and $O_2$ plasma treatments. The ratio of Zn to O on the surface of the ZnO nanorod increased in the case of $H_2$ plasma, while the composition rate of O increased after $O_2$ plasma treatment. The AES results seems to be correlated to the shift in PL peaks. The increase in the composition rate of Zn on the surface of ZnO nanorod is considered to cause the blue shift of the UV peak. On the contrary, the relative increase of O is considered to cause the red shift in PL peaks.