This post is related to the earlier blog page, Anime with a Purpose: Peace and Paper Cranes.
In the summer of 2018, this program was introduced to the Chinese Christian Family Conference annual retreat at Lake Tahoe in Northern California. After watching the anime film, the young participants at the conference were inspired to fold paper cranes for peace, friendship and respect for life on earth. They generally did not know much of the background story behind the activity of folding paper cranes. Some learned for the first time how to fold a paper crane and some were already very good at it but did not know that there was a major World War Two event connected to it and a true life story of an elementary schoolgirl Sadako and her friends who showed the world the meanings of kindness and hope and the devastations of a nuclear war.
Origami art is an ancient art form and it is heartening to see how anime can help to ignite young people’s interest in the activity and that thoughts of goodwill and calmness could last momentarily and for the long term as well. The colorful paper cranes that they made showed the way and so were their renderings of the word peace..
Collective creativity brings in intangible rewards.
Cranes of different colors
and postures
a crane for you and its blessings..