A Wonderful Paper World



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Origami, the art of folding paper into different shapes, is a wonderful part of Japanese culture. I like to fold to create something, so I chose this subject. At first, origami is one of the Japanese creative arts and games.Origami paper is a square and origami has a lot of colors, red, yellow and purple. Japanese children start learning how to play origami at a kindergarten or nursery school, so you should start learning origami as soon as you can. Next, origami can be folded to create the animals, flowers and anything. It seems to me, senba-zuru, a hanging of one thousand paper cranes, is typical of origami arts. It is believed that Japanese people pray and a god grants their wishes someday, so they create the senba-zuru with all their hearts. Lastly, I started learning origami when I was three or four years old, then I folded to create shapes every day. But today’s Japanese children hardly ever do origami because they are absorbed in playing the video games and they think origami is dowdy. I recommend to today’s Japanese children to have Japanese culture class for once or twice a week, so they can gain confidence to teach their origami to foreign people. Only a sheet of paper is amazing to foreign people because origami changes to a lot variety of shapes by a person’s hands.


Research Notes
Ann Stalucup, Japanese Origami: Paper Magic, PowkerKids Press, 1999