Origami – Transcript
Have you ever heard of origami? It is the Japanese art of paper folding. In fact, origami means “paper folding” in Japanese. It has been popular there for hundreds of years, but it only became known in other places quite recently.
Origami is most often done with a square piece of paper. The paper can be any color, but the shade is usually slightly different on each side. There are only a small number of basic origami folds. However, these can be combined in many different ways to make detailed and interesting designs.
The most popular origami design is the crane. Paper cranes are part of a famous Japanese story. In that story a young girl who becomes sick is told about an old legend. According to the legend, anyone who folds 1000 paper cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. The girl begins folding paper cranes but dies before she has completed 1000. Her classmates, sad to learn that she has died, agree to complete the remaining cranes for her.
In the past, new origami designs were made by trial and error. A person would start with an idea of what they wanted to make and then would try making different folds until they succeeded. These days computer programs use complicated mathematics to create new designs. There are now houses throughout Japan that are based on designs from origami. Although these houses may look like origami, they are not made from paper.
