1000 Paper Cranes

千羽鶴, or senbadsuru, 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.
This past March I was beginning a unit on Japan in my World Geography and Cultures class and had decided to do a project wherein small groups of student taught the rest of the class how to do a Japanese art. One of those arts was origami. As Aya and I searched around Shanghai to get enough origami papers for each student to have a few sheets to fold we started talking about how long it would take someone to fold 1000 cranes. I had heard about this before and seen the strings of thousands of cranes for Sadako Sasaki in Hiroshima.

Somehow the obvious then dawned on me for I had been looking for a fundraising project for the students to do. Since the earthquake on March 11th Japan had been on my mind a lot and now I had the perfect opportunity to bring my students, teaching Japan arts, and helping Japan together. Should we fold 1000 cranes it would be our collective wish for Japan to heal from the events of March 11th. As a school and community we could show our support.

By April 7th I had ordered 2000 sheets of origami paper, I assumed some would be lost or discarded in the process of folding (378 were by final count). I then informed my students of the task ahead of them; to sell paper cranes to friends and family. The friends and family could then write a personal message along with their names on the origami paper. The cranes would then be folded and everyones wishes put together. The catch, the students would have to fold all 1000 cranes. I was not going to fold one and they couldn't get help from other grade level students or their parents. Of course I helped out by holding folding sessions and providing snacks while playing Japanese anime everyday during the lunch period for 2 weeks, but I never folded a crane.

As our two week deadline for completing 1000 cranes approached I was beginning to realize that there were much more than that flooding boxes in my classroom. After spending another week of lunch periods stringing them together it became easier to count all the cranes and we came out with 1622. I was amazed and really all those cranes together are very beautiful.

For a week they are hanging in the foyer of our school and then they are being boxed and shipped to Oregon where they will be matched by a 2 dollar donation per crane by the Bezos Foundation. Then I am told they will travel again to Denver to become part of a giant art installation that will hold 500,000 paper cranes.

At the end of the day I am happy that I got to share such a wonderful thing with my students and to help Japan by raising not only about 5,000 dollars but a connection to japan as well.

Home

As the world now knows last week at 2:46 on Friday in Japan an earthquake of magnitude 8.9 struck off the coast of Miyagi ken. Though the earthquake was the strongest since records had begun being kept 140 years ago Japan was in better shape than ever to meet such an instance of the earth’s power. In the nations of the world Japan is likely the most quake prepared. From birth Japanese people enter a land of quakes and are drilled and reminded often on what to do in case of a major quake. Building codes ensure that most structures are on the cutting edge of quake resistance technology. On top of that the Japanese people’s strict adherence to rules and deep community concern ensures that when disaster hits order, not chaos, ensues.
When the quake hit I was in Beijing on the subway returning to my hotel. I had taken a group of students to Beijing to participate in the Model United Nations there, BEIMUN. I received a text from my wife, who was in Shanghai, that Japan had been hit by a “big earthquake”. While I knew that it must be quite a powerful quake for my Japanese wife to refer to it as “big” I was not terribly concerned because of the afore mentioned reasons. Certainly things would be shaken up, but Japan was a nation fit to stand such shake ups. Naturally when I got back to my hotel room about 45 minutes later I switched on the TV to see if any of the networks were carrying the story.
They were, all 10 news channels had images of Japan across the screen and I was shocked to learn that the quake was indeed big. That shock soon turned to horror as images of reporters in studios turned to waves of sea, debris, houses, cars, and fire rolled across what was clearly Japanese countryside, eating everything in its path. No doubt people were in that wave and cars attempting to race away from the destruction could clearly be seen in the footage. They likely never got away. I soon learned that a tsunami had followed the quake and the eastern coast of Japan was being hit by a wave that in some places was 10 meters tall (30 feet!) and traveling around 500 mph. I called my wife, to learn that she could not contact her parents in Japan, and the next few hours were spent using whatever means I could to try to contact her parents. A few hours later I received word that she had contacted them and they were ok. Slowly other reports started to trickle in from friends that they too were ok, but as I watched the images on the television the rest of the night I realized that Japan would not be able to stand up from this blow anytime soon.
That’s part of the story that I have to tell and it is probably the one that most of you know about and can see in the news. As I sit here in Shanghai, in my comfortable apartment I don’t have any elaborate story about how this led me to some pearl of wisdom, or how I found something new and interesting, or how the world is a better place. Nor do I really have advice on what to do. I can’t really do anything. You can’t really do anything. We can sit here and feel bad and we can try to donate some money for relief, which is about it, but I can’t help feeling awful all the same.
However, I do have another part of the story to tell. Japan and specifically Fukushima ken is a second home for me. When I think of the happiest moments of my life many of them occurred there. When I moved to Japan 4 years ago I know that my mother was a bit worried about me and to be honest I was a bit worried myself. Traveling in a foreign country can be a bit nerve racking let alone moving to one, but I soon found that I was not only ok, I was coddled. Over a few years I came to really love where I was living.

While my mom worried and wondered I was secure in my community. I know also that when she visited me a few years later she was relieved to see that I was in a country that was safe and filled with friendly and polite people. In a recent email about Japan she said,

“The reporter (on TV) said she knew something was wrong when she heard screaming, because Japanese people are very polite and self controlled. It reminded me of the subways when I was there too. No pushing and shoving; even though tons of people and of course I had to hang on to your sleeve!”

So our cup runneth over; I married a Japanese girl, learned Japanese, and became engrained in “Japan”. I am forever connected. When I think about the disaster all I get are alternate images of matchstick houses and Japanese smiles. I see my in laws laughing and buildings on fire. I see a roomful of teachers and students bowing to each other in unison and then see a 30 foot wall of water. I see my home and then I see… my home, but I know that everything will be ok. Besides being very polite and friendly the Japanese are incredibly hard working and resilient. When I first heard the news that the quake happened I was sure Japan could weather the storm, looking at Japan now amid the rubble I am sure that Japan will recover and eventually thrive again.