Manzanar cranes

[zyzyly]

Comments

[gutbloom.livejournal.com]

A great picture.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

thank you--it is one of my favorites from this place

[her-whispers.livejournal.com]

that reminded me of my grandfather suddenly.

when he was ill, my sister-in-law Kyoko (she is from Japan) folded 1,000 tiny paper cranes in a rainbow of colour for him.

though he's gone now, the cranes still hang in their family room. 1000 little pieces of love and hope.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

It is funny how powerful little folded pieces of paper can be.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

Very much so. I want to write a little about how I felt standing there, all alone, surrounded by these cranes, but I haven't yet found the words.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize!

[pinkroo.livejournal.com]

that just made me smile--like so many of your pictures. Thanks!

[myasma.livejournal.com]

you are welcome!

[angelamermaid.livejournal.com]

With just the right wind, they're going to take off!

[myasma.livejournal.com]

many of them do--there is a fairly strong wind that blows through there, and I imagine it scatters them far and wide.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

In a way I feel very lucky that my mom grew up not only very dark (Grandma was also very dark, not sure why, might be related to family history that's been lost), dark enough to have experienced discrimination, but she grew up in Modoc County, near the Tule Lake camps, and she had a knee-jerk reaction about racism. I don't remember not knowing the stories of the internment camps or Jim Crow laws. My grandma had a housekeeper whose husband was an orchardist. They'd had a nice truck farm and orchard before the war, and fortunately, were able to sell the orchard to a friend for a pittance when they were called up to a camp, then the friend just gave it back to them when they got out. They were very lucky.

So I heard the stories of mosquitos and heat and icy winds and giving up everything.

Unfortunately, it's taken from me my sense of surprise. I'm rarely shocked, anymore, at things people do to one another.

I'm glad people visiting Manzanar remember.

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

beautiful! i love those cranes. and i have made hundreds of them :-)

[myasma.livejournal.com]

I would like to learn how to fold them.

[zhenzhi.livejournal.com]

i learned in a train station in japan. there was some people with a table set up with paper to fold. after making one, you wrote your name and area where you live on them.... and theY.sent them to the people who still suffer from radiation based sicknesses (from hiroshima). in my three years there (japan) i'm sure i would have made a thousand of them!! at one point, i could do it with my eyes closed which was great, as i could pray into them as i folded. :-) :-)
you must have heard the story of 1000 cranes?
Sadako Sasaki was 12 years old, ten years after the atom bombing of Hiroshima in World War II. Unfortunately she had to be hospitalized when she developed leukemia from the effects of radiation. She remembered the Japanese legend that anyone folding a thousand paper cranes is granted a wish. She set about this task with great hope for her recovery but her health held out only long enough to complete 644.

The crane, which has a long life-span, is an age-old Oriental symbol of good fortune and longevity. Because of Sadako’s courageous story, the crane achieved added significance as the symbol of peace throughout the world.
In this spirit, the city of Hiroshima built a Peace Memorial with a figure of Sadako holding a large golden crane above her head with outstretched hands. Every year children from Japan and many other countries send thousands and thousands of folded paper cranes to Hiroshima, where they pile up in huge mountains around Sadako’s statue as a prayer for worldwide peace.

they are not hard to make once you get the hang of it. :-)

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

magical, Mike.~paul

[myasma.livejournal.com]

thanks Paul.

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

;o)
~paul

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I received a paper crane in the mail this week from a woman in Iceland named Gerda, who chose me at random to send one of the 23 peace cranes with which she celebrated her 23rd birthday.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

How wonderful it must have been to find that in the mail!

[worldcomrade.livejournal.com]

My imagination is going wild. They look delightful. But what does it mean?

[myasma.livejournal.com]

it is in a cemetery in the ruins of a Japanese internment camp-I* think they represent healing and peace.

[worldcomrade.livejournal.com]

So it is a bittersweet beauty.

[myasma.livejournal.com]

very much so.