The cherry blossoms, Japan's national flower, were introduced extensively during the Japanese occupation. In an effort to stamp out all Korean culture, the Japanese tried desperately to make Korea seem as Japanese as possible. They changed people's names, destroyed native flowers and introduced foreign ones, and they even tried to disrupt traditional mountainous energy flow patterns by erecting huge poles on the peaks of mountains. The cherry blossoms are perhaps bittersweet in a certain way, for their beauty and their reminder of the Japanese occupation. Some Koreans sometimes remark that the cherry blossom, like Japan, blooms splendidly but only very briefly before it falls away - reflecting some peoples' opinion about Japan.