Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴 Senbazuru or Zenbazuru?) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings.
An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy beasts (others include the dragon and tortoise), and is said to live for a thousand years. In Asia, it is commonly said that folding 1000 paper origami cranes makes a person’s wish come true. This makes them popular gifts for special friends and family.
(from wikipedia)
seen a bit everywhere, in the streets of porto.
4 replies on “Senbazuru”
This reminds me of Sadako Sasaki, whose story I read on wikipedia some months ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_Sasaki). It’s a very touching story of a girl who got sick of leukemia after being exposed to the bomb on Hiroshima; while at the hospital, she started folding paper cranes hoping she would be cured, as the legend you mention promised. It didn’t work, though, and there is now a statue of her holding a golden crane at Hiroshima War Memorial.
Glad to know that those paper cranes managed to fly to Porto :)
That crane art is BEAUTIFUL! Nathalie’s story is touching.
A little bit more context on the project and author, in portuguese:
http://charneira.blogspot.com/2009/06/1000-tsuru.html
http://jpn.icicom.up.pt/2009/05/13/arte_uma_ave_branca_pintada_pelas_ruas_do_porto_para_pedir_um_desejo.html
Does anyone know what the original legend is? It’s mentioned on every website, but nobody seems to know the traditional story…