The Role Of Origami In Japanese Culture

1, Introduction

Origami or also known as Japanese paper folding, is an extremely creative form of art that now very popular around the globe and enjoyed by many people at all ages. In Japanese, “ori” stands for “folding” and “kami” stands for paper so combined they become Origami (Callie & Jeremy 2012). As its name, Origami is an expression used worldwide to describe the action of transforming a sheet of paper into different shape by folding it. After thousand years of history, Origami still play an important role in Japanese culture and also turn to a feature of Japan along with Sake, Sushi,... Origami now not only restricted as a form of art or a hobby for fun but it is also examined further by experts to serve the technology and other

As stated in “Vuon tre tho” (2014), in some places in the world, Origami is taught as a subject in kinder garden, this practice has been proved to bring a lot of advantages to the development of children. At first, folding make children perfect their skill of using hand, also the fact that children have to remember many instructions of folding paper help them to train their memory. Furthermore, kids will have an excellent opportunity to approach the mathematics and architecture at very early ages while folding with colorful paper improves their imagination and creativity. In addition, with adults, Origami is meaningful with its effectiveness in relaxing and stress relief, insomnia and a potential therapy for listing hand. In 2014, the dress created by the influence of Origami, called Origami skirts, appeared in many fashion shows with lots of famous brand such as Rodarte, Prada, Fendi… (Lana 2014) Moreover, Origami nowadays is examined further by the experts to be used widely in technology. The most common object related to Origami is the creation of airbags in cars, Robert Lang, an Origami artist and a scientist, took advantage of Origami and helped create airbags. More examples for the usage of Origami in technology is to invent robot that automatic transform from the flat-shape to other shape or the creation of solar batteries and other technical items used in astronautics… In the same token, Zhong You, from Oxford University also developed a new kind of cardiac catheterization for Healthcare inspired by the art of Origami (Manh Tuan 2014). In architecture, Origami also inspires architect to build a creative house in Barcelona, Spain affected this form of art (Ha Mai 2012). Neil Katz, An architect, believed that Origami can also be used to created houses which can be folded or assembled easily (Manh Tuan 2014). In sport equipments,