Thursday word: senbazuru
Feb. 12th, 2015 08:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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1word1daysenbazuru (sen-bah-zoo-roo) - n., one thousand origami cranes.
In Japan (as in most of East Asia) a crane represents longevity, because it was believed to live for a thousand years. Folding a thousand of them, one for each year, is supposed to grant one a wish for good health, or when given as a wedding present, a long and prosperous marriage. Or, thanks to the story of Sadako and the Thousand Folk Processes, a prayer for world peace. From Japanese 千葉鶴, being sen, thousand + ha, the counter for pieces of paper + tsuru, crane, with sound-changes from the concatenation, because that's the way Japanese rolls.
Instructions for folding a senbazuru available at http://www.monkey.org/~aidan/origami/crane/, and many other places around the internet.
---L.
In Japan (as in most of East Asia) a crane represents longevity, because it was believed to live for a thousand years. Folding a thousand of them, one for each year, is supposed to grant one a wish for good health, or when given as a wedding present, a long and prosperous marriage. Or, thanks to the story of Sadako and the Thousand Folk Processes, a prayer for world peace. From Japanese 千葉鶴, being sen, thousand + ha, the counter for pieces of paper + tsuru, crane, with sound-changes from the concatenation, because that's the way Japanese rolls.
Instructions for folding a senbazuru available at http://www.monkey.org/~aidan/origami/crane/, and many other places around the internet.
---L.
