Your childhood was awesome if you ever played with paper boats, airplanes, and fortune-tellers! Little did you know, you’ve already experienced crafting Origami!  

Origami is a derivative of two Japanese words: Ori (folded) and Kami (paper).

What is Origami? 

‘Ori’ means folding and ‘gami’ means paper, simply meaning “folding paper”. It is a cool and hugely popular Japanese craft technique. In Origami, the same and simple concepts are used in everything from a paper crane with 20 steps to a Dragon with over 1000 steps! 

A single traditional square sheet of paper can be transformed into an infinite number of shapes figures, animals, etc., just by folding 

Let’s take a quick little look at the history of origami to understand it better.   

Not only Origami but paper wasn’t also invented in Japan. Paper was invented in China, around 100 years before Christ. They also already started experimenting with folding the paper to form different shapes. 

Japanese traders were awestruck with this incredible invention and they decided to trade for the paper and they brought it back to Japan. They were also the ones who came up with the idea of folding paper and transforming it into art.  

A skill of the rich  

There was a problem back then, the paper was unbelievably expensive. So, very wealthy people from religious groups were able to afford it.  

The first few origami pieces were made by the Buddhist monks who used them in their religious ceremonies as significant symbols and offerings. Origami then became the talk of the town, especially among the rich.  

Paper was so rare and expensive that only rich people could practice the skill. Practicing Origami was considered to be an elegant and elite skill for upper-class women. 

It wasn’t until much later that origami became famous with other classes of people. One of the most familiar Japanese origami pieces is the Japanese Crane. In Japanese culture, Crane is a mythological creature believed to live for a thousand years, so it is perceived as a symbol of long life and good luck.  

It is also believed that if you can make a group of thousand origami cranes held together by strings, and make your wish come true! 

Origami plays a prominent role, especially in Japanese culture. Folding paper adds a specified weight in the period 794-1185. For instance, paper butterflies were used for the wedding ceremonies to represent the bride and groom. 

Facts you need to know about Origami: 

• No tapping, cutting, pasting or marking is involved in crafting origami figures. It is done purely by folding the paper. 
• Origami involves detailed mathematical properties behind folding a single piece of paper which would help develop many complex figures and models.  
• There is a real story based on the famous Japanese mythical creature ‘Crain’ that is said to live a thousand years. The mentions of the story can be found in a popular non-fiction book  
• According to an ancient Japanese legend, it is believed that if you fold one thousand cranes you will be granted a wish. Feeling lucky yet? 
• ‘Sadako and the thousand paper Cranes’. written by Eleanor Cara. The story is about a Japanese girl who lived in Hiroshima and was one of the very few children who survived the terrible nuclear bomb attack during the second world war. However, after some years, the girl whose name was Sadako Sasaki was diagnosed with leukemia. She decided to start folding a thousand origami Cranes in the hope to get well soon. Unfortunately, she died after completing just 644 models! 
• The folding paper also has various practical applications. For instance, some particular method of folding paper at certain specific angles, invented by Japanese Astrophysicist Korra Miura, has been used to design solar panels for space satellites. Woah! Now, that’s some serious origami.  
• Origami has also been used in designing car airbags or even grocery boxes.  
• The fastest time to make 100 origami cranes is 40 minutes 35 seconds, achieved by Yoneyama Yuichi (Japan) in Nagoya, Japan, on 30 November 2010. That’s an average of 24.35 seconds for each crane! 
• There are more than a dozen National Origami Associations throughout the world. 
• Akira Yoshizawa is considered the Grand Master of modern Origami. He created over 50,000 origami models, invented wet-folding, and developed a method of diagramming origami instructions. 
• Origami is derived from two Japanese words: Ori (folded) and Kami (paper). Earlier, the art was called “Orikata” (folded shapes). 
• Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology used the concept of static electricity to create electrical energy by folding and unfolding origami. 

Key Takeaways

So, now you know the application, history, and importance of origami which has been prevalent for hundreds of years. Next time, you see a piece of paper lying around, try to make some creative origami figures out of it. 

Also, stay tuned to SpeEDLabs for more such amazing facts!

Also published on Medium.