Recap Blog Post 5: 1,000 Cranes is More than you Think

Because our STINT team had been planning on going to Japan this year, when March rolled around, all of us were very aware of the coming of the one-year anniversary of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.   Back when we were still planning on going to Tokyo, one of our big focuses for the year had been doing service work in areas where people are still displaced from their homes.  After we got rerouted to Hilo, we still had a desire to help the Tohoku survivors.  We knew whatever we did here wouldn't be a substitute for actually being there to help people, but we wanted to do something for the Japanese survivors who are still struggling and still without homes. 

In Japanese tradition, folding 1,000 origami paper cranes for someone will grant them one wish.  They are traditionally sent to people with a long illness, or given at weddings to wish the newlyweds years of prosperity and happiness.  They have often been sent to Tohoku survivors--if you look at the picture of the memorial from my Tohoku Earthquake anniversary post, you can see strings of cranes on the grave site.  We decided to fold a thousand cranes and send them to Japan’s Cru movement so they could take them to some of the earthquake survivors during their next trip up to Tohoku.  In order to get the UH Hilo students involved and to increase awareness about the continuing struggles of the tsunami survivors, we set up a table on campus to fold cranes and invited any passing students to come join us and fold a crane to add to the strings.    

Tabling on Campus.  Come fold cranes for the Tsunami Anniversary!

I was initially a little concerned about getting the project done on time.  The Friday before we tabled on campus our team took an hour to have crane-folding lessons from Kimi and Christine, and the first few cranes I folded were not fit to fly.  There are multiple ways to mess up an origami crane, and I’m pretty sure I found all of them that afternoon.  This actually came in handy later when I was teaching people, as I could tell where they had messed up, but at the time I just felt incompetent.  On Friday it took me about 5 minutes to fold a good crane.  I calculated that if students on campus didn’t help us out, at that rate it would take each STINTer over 9 hours of origami folding to get the cranes done, and that didn’t even account for stringing them.

Seriously.  It's a lot of cranes.

I needn’t have worried though.  Of all the events we’ve had on campus, folding cranes was our best received and best attended by far.  We ended up actually finishing early, so on the last day we wrote up messages of love and hope in Japanese that students could copy and write on the wings of the cranes.

The Japanese reads: "God loves Japan!"

After stringing the cranes in strands of forty, we bundled them up in a sizable box and airmailed them off to Cru in Tokyo.  

Me with some cranes.  Fly away home, little ones!

While I was happy to see so many students that wanted to show their care and support for Japan, I overheard one unpleasant sentiment on campus  that I did not expect.  On our last day I heard a couple students discussing our crane table, and they thought the whole idea was a waste of time.  How could sending paper birds overseas actually help these people?

After cooling off from my frustration a little, I realized the question was legitimate, but also that these students had come to the wrong conclusion.  Of course I do not advocate sending cranes as a substitute for financial and physical support for the survivors.  Cranes can’t fill a stomach or rebuild homes.  But that doesn’t make them useless.

I know this because of my experience with one of the Japanese international students who came to our table that week.  Her presence alone made the entire week worth it.  She ran up to our table and fervently thanked us over and over for remembering her country and her people.  It meant so much to her that we would take the time and energy to show the Japanese that we still loved them and we still cared about them.  She came back every day to fold cranes, and every day she thanked us again and again.  She even brought money to us to help us pay to ship the cranes to Japan.

Yes, Japan needs food and Japan needs resources right now.  But on top of that, the Japanese survivors need love and comfort.  They have suffered a great loss, and they need emotional support in addition to the resources to rebuild.  To fight the emotional despair, they need someone to care for their hearts.  Our cranes are a significant way of communicating love to the Japanese people. 

My thanks to all the students who participated in the crane folding event, and all of you who are continuing to support Japan as the country works towards recovery.

All done!  1,000 cranes!

Warning those who like to fidget and fiddle (like me): If you fold cranes for hours every day for a week, long after you have any necessity to fold origami you will have an obsessive urge to fold cranes, and you will have to buy origami paper to satisfy your need to fold things.