An enterprise in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province, recently ran an outdoor advertisement in Tokyo, claiming Wuhan is home to cherry blossom. The ad also invited Tokyo residents to visit Wuhan University, where cherry blossom attracts a considerable number of tourists from across China, even abroad, in spring every year.

The ad, as a historian at Wuhan University said, has several mistakes, especially those on the origin of cherry blossom and the cherry trees in Wuhan. Despite its famous cherry-themed scenic spots, Wuhan did get most of its cherry trees from Japan after 1938, when Japanese soldiers invaded the city and sowed cherry seeds during the occupation.

In other words, the cherry blossom in Wuhan does have a genetic connection with the trees planted by the imperial Japanese army more than seven decades ago. That, to some extent, serves as a reminder of the shameful past, when many Chinese people fell prey to the brutality of the Japanese colonialists.