A Thousand Cranes: A Story of Hope and Resilience Through Origami

The Shape Of Emotion

Origami is the ancient and beautiful art of paper folding, creating varied designs such as animals and objects, like the popular swan or boat shapes. The name origami stems from the Japanese language of ‘ori’ meaning fold, and ‘gami’ meaning paper.

I am a huge fan of origami. I always loved to see how the delicate folds transformed a simple piece of paper into a work of art.

A few days before when my son was reading the chapter “Paper cranes of peace” from his textbook, which was about Origami, the story deeply touched my heart and inspired me a lot. I felt that I should write about the message which Origami conveys to the entire world.

This is the story of an extremely courageous little fighter, named Sadako Sasaki, who was diagnosed with leukemia which was called A -bomb disease at that time, caused by the atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Sadako was a healthy, athletic, and lively child, until one day when she was practicing for a big race, she was overcome by dizziness and collapsed. She was found suffering from leukemia, cancer of the blood which was the direct result of contamination by the atomic bomb when she was just two years old. There was a low survival rate for A-bomb disease at that time, she was very scared.Sadako wanted to recover and run races once again.

Her mother always said that “Sadako had learned to run before she could walk”.

Her best friend told her about the legend that said that anyone who folded one thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish-and Sadako’s wish would be to live a long life.

Throughout Asia, the crane is a symbol of happiness and eternal youth. In Japan, the crane is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the dragon and the tortoise) and symbolizes good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years.

Sadako believe that every crane she folded represented a wish, and so she used every scrap of paper which could be found for her to fold her cranes.Even as her friends alongside in the hospital died,she kept on folding-but her wished changed.

Now she wished that this kind of atrocity should never happen again.There should be no more bombs or war. Her wish for peace, so that neither children nor adults should ever suffer and die like this again.

Sadako managed to fold 644 cranes before she could fold no more. She died on 25 October 1955 .Her classmates and family folded the remaining 356 cranes to bury with her. Her friends were determined that she should be remembered, and her wish be fulfilled.

Sadako once said:

“ I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.”

SADAKO’S PEACE MONUMENT IN HIROSHIMA

Young people from all over the Japan contributed money for the project which would ensure that Sadako would never be forgotten. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unvelled in Hiroshima Peace Park.

The wish of the children who worked for the project is inscribed at the bottom of the statue. It reads:

This is our cry.

This is our prayer.

Peace in the world.

Today,the origami cranes have become a symbol of peace. People from all over Japan and the world , fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima.

No matter what you do in life, be good or bad , always remember this:you are an origami butterfly. You’re a collection of folds and angles. And when you open up the paper , the world will see beauty of your shape.