Travel shots #5 Japan - The most colorful sights of Japanese temples, the paper cranes (orizuru)
Japanese legend claims the person who folds a thousand of these paper cranes, will be granted a wish...better start folding!
The legend
The paper crane, orizuru in Japanese, is by far the most famous of origami. Origami of course, is the Japanese art of folding paper into very elaborate but elegant paper forms, usually holy animals. According to an ancient Japanese legend, these paper cranes are rather special. It is said that the person who is able to endure folding a thousand of these cranes, also known as senbazuru, will be granted a wish by the gods. Nowadays, the folding of these cranes is mostly done as a prayer for health and as a symbol of hope. They are therefore often presented as a gift to friends and family.
Japanese temples
Japan has a lot of different religions and mythologies, of which Buddhism and Shinto are the most visible. Japan is absolutely filled with temples, from very small to entire complexes with several temples. Shinto temples are easily recognizable by the big and bright orange gates and the cranes can often be found there. The smaller temples have a couple, some bigger temples have literally tens of thousands in a row forming a giant colorful wall of cranes.
At first sight
When you first see the colors from a distance, you think wow! What is that? Upon coming closer and seeing how detailed they are, it gets even more amazing. Whenever you find yourself near a Japanese temple, make sure to check them out!
Materials
Most often seen are the colored cranes in every color of the rainbow, the papers are sold in sets of a thousand. However, some people add a little more effort and cut their own pieces of paper out of anything available. Often newspapers or magazines. If you want to try it out yourself, check out the tutorial here!
Sadako Sasaki
There is a very interesting but sad story that really made the paper cranes known and popular amongst a big audience, the story of Sadako Sasaki. You can read more about it here.
Follow me for more original content!
Interesting read, I really had no idea about the origination of paper crane. Where did you take these photos?
I took these at several different temples in Japan
Thank you again, very nice pics of you @thephotoguide
Excellent photography and that hehe lol @thephotoguide
SENBAZURU
yes :) Have you made any?
Because the SENBAZURU is implication such as the memorial services to recovery of illness and a late person, there is not it with the thing which is Happy
This post has received a 1.04 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @thephotoguide.
This post got a
1.05% upvote thanks to @thephotoguide - Hail Eris !good article .. helpful.. thanks for sharing @thephotoguide
Wow these are gorgeous!! I love that graffiti at the end as well :D @thephotoguide
Thank you! I knew you would not only appreciate the spoken word of hiphop but also the written one ;) I scribbled this up when I was bored, I do loads of them! I can do an 'Awareness Raiser' if you want! You know what, I'm just going to do it :) you'll see!
nice post buddy
Thank you! :)
very nice cranes and pictures. thanks for sharing . will follow you and have upvoted.
Thank you :)