PaperBased.net

Recently a friend returned from a trip to Japan with hundreds of holiday snaps of his travels and adventures there. Some of these photos were of the statue of Sadako Sasaki (The Children’s Monument) in Hiroshima’s Peace Park. The statue is of a young girl holding aloft a large golden crane. It is surrounded by thousands of colourful folded paper cranes that are brought and sent to the city each year by children from around the world.

I remembered reading the story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (an historical fiction novell written by Eleanor Coerr in 1977 and based on the collection of letters between Sadako and her classmates) for school and being very touched by the story of this courageous girl. The story revolves around Sadako, a 12 year old girl who is dying of leukaemia as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima when she was only two years old. She hears that if you fold 1000 paper cranes you get to make one wish, so she begins folding with the wish to be made well again.

Sadako’s determination inspired her classmates to start a national campaign to remember her and the hundreds of other children killed in the bombing. Sadako and her paper cranes have since become a symbol of peace.

When reading this book in class we had also learnt how to fold the paper cranes. This was the activity that started my love of paper folding and origami. After seeing my friend’s photos of the paper cranes in the peace park it prompted me to revisit the story and to learn to fold a paper crane again.

If you’d like to read more about the real Sadako you can find her story at the World Peace Project for Children website or the Sadako Sasaki Wikipedia entry. Both sites contain photographs of the peace statue and of the many paper cranes placed around it.

Instructions for folding your own paper crane can be found at the following sites:

• World Peace Project for Children - Folding Paper Cranes
• World Peace Project for Children - Other Paper Crane Instructions
• Animated Origami Crane Instructions (requires Flash)
• Operation Peace Crane

The Yamaha site in Japan has the coolest paper folding section.  It has full colour models of motorcycles and animals that you can download, print out and assemble.

They are amazing!  There’s an ultra-realistic section with a model of a Yamaha MT-01 that just takes your breath away.

There’s also a section on the Seasons that has the best Jack’O'Lantern pattern.  Check it out!

The Sanwa Supply website has a Paper Museum section with a heap of cute paper folding craft activities.

The full colour pattern files are available for download in PDF format.  You just print them out, cut out all the pieces, then fold and glue.

I thought this paper dogs and kennel pattern was really cute.

The site is in japanese, so navigating is a little difficult at first, but keep at it because there’s something interesting behind every link.