Travel shots #5 Japan - The most colorful sights of Japanese temples, the paper cranes (orizuru)

Japanese legend claims the person who folds a thousand of these paper cranes, will be granted a wish...better start folding!

The legend

The paper crane, orizuru in Japanese, is by far the most famous of origami. Origami of course, is the Japanese art of folding paper into very elaborate but elegant paper forms, usually holy animals. According to an ancient Japanese legend, these paper cranes are rather special. It is said that the person who is able to endure folding a thousand of these cranes, also known as senbazuru, will be granted a wish by the gods. Nowadays, the folding of these cranes is mostly done as a prayer for health and as a symbol of hope. They are therefore often presented as a gift to friends and family.

Japanese temples

Japan has a lot of different religions and mythologies, of which Buddhism and Shinto are the most visible. Japan is absolutely filled with temples, from very small to entire complexes with several temples. Shinto temples are easily recognizable by the big and bright orange gates and the cranes can often be found there. The smaller temples have a couple, some bigger temples have literally tens of thousands in a row forming a giant colorful wall of cranes.

At first sight

When you first see the colors from a distance, you think wow! What is that? Upon coming closer and seeing how detailed they are, it gets even more amazing. Whenever you find yourself near a Japanese temple, make sure to check them out!

Materials

Most often seen are the colored cranes in every color of the rainbow, the papers are sold in sets of a thousand. However, some people add a little more effort and cut their own pieces of paper out of anything available. Often newspapers or magazines. If you want to try it out yourself, check out the tutorial here!

Sadako Sasaki

There is a very interesting but sad story that really made the paper cranes known and popular amongst a big audience, the story of Sadako Sasaki. You can read more about it here.

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