What Fascinating Facts About Origami?

1. China’s Influence Toward Origami

Do you know the origin of Origami? Although origami comes from Japan, China is the place that introduce the original concept of paper folding. Since paper was first invented in China, there were various reasons the Chinese folded the paper and one of it is for their traditional funerals that often include the burning of folded paper. Then, the art was brought by Buddhist monks to Japan, where it is developed into an art form. Now, origami craft is officially known comes from Japan, but it is still famous among people over the world.

2. Interesting Hidden Meaning in Origami

Everyone like to make an origami, but do you know that Japanese usually make origami for a reasons? In Edo period, the samurai gave each other gifts known as "noshi" that were paper folded with a strip fish as a token of good luck. Moreover, when Japanese made a traditional origami using a piece of paper in the shape of a square, they will not permit any cutting. Then, there also an ancient Japanese legend says that if you fold one thousand cranes you will be granted a wish.

We can see their strong belief in origami when they created the largest number of origami cranes as part of the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. It was displayed in a large memorial in the city with a total of 250,000 paper crane were folded. Each had a person's name and a short peaceful message on it. This is because for Japanese a paper crane is a symbol for world peace.

3. The Oldest Illustration

Finding Old origami designs is hard because Origami is made of paper that disintegrates over time. However, the oldest illustration of an origami design was created by Johannes de Sacrobosco in Venice. It is dates from 1490 and it shows a simple illustration of paper boats floating on a body of water with a sun as the background.

 

For your information, America or England did not know about origami until about 1900. Because of the elaborate and remarkable designs of origami, people from both of these country were fascinated by it. Today, all school around the world has made origami as an art form to be taught in school for their student to learn and appreciated. 

Origami World Records

There are dozens of records for origami in the Guinness Book of World Records including most folds, smallest, biggest, fastest time for folding 100 cranes, and many more. Below, I have listed some of the world record that I am interested with:

Smallest Origami Crane

A square 1 mm by 1 mm was used to fold a crane using a microscope and sewing needle by Assistant Professor Watanabe at Nigata University, Japan.
(source: British Origami, No. 119, page 22)

Largest Origami Mosaic

The largest origami mosaic measures 986.46 m² (10,618.167 ft²) and was created by Junior Chamber International Kobe (Japan) at Kobe International Exhibition Hall in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan on 9 August 2015.

45,357 pieces of origami paper were folded into hydrangea shapes and were used to create the mosaic depicting the famous landscape of Kobe port. About 850 people, mainly families and kids, attended the event to make the origami and create the mosaic.
(source: Guinness Book of World Records)

Origami - largest paper crane

The largest origami paper crane has a wingspan of 81.94 m (268 ft 9 in) and was created by 800 people of the Peace Piece Project (all Japan) at the Hiroshima Shudo University, Hiroshima, Japan, on 29 August 2009.

The claimants first created a piece of paper measuring 100 m x 100 m (328 ft x 328 ft) out of smaller paper pieces. These pieces were attached to one another with tape. The wingspan was measured by a surveyor using triangulation.
(source: Guinness Book of World Records)