Basking in the Land of Origami Paper

I think I just died and went to heaven. There is origami paper EVERYWHERE!! I haven't gone out to buy any because people just give it to me, either because their kids don't use it anymore or they just happened to have it. The packaging says it cost ￥90-100, or about $1. This is for a packet of about 80 sheets of 6x6 inch paper - which would cost probably $8-11 in the US. The nicer paper comes in packs of 20-30, but same price. Osaki san, who is an incredibly sweet lady in the office, found some gorgeous patterned paper maybe in a magazine or something and gave it to me. Except for that, so far its all been small paper, but I imagine there must be larger sheets within easy, affordable reach.

But it's the elementary schools that shout 'Land of Origami'. The walls are COVERED with it! Little flowers, lanterns, and geometric shapes folded from origami decorate every art project and bulletin board. There seems to be so much paper that kids even cut up the foil-backed paper to make shiny crowns and suns for their illustrations. Foil-backed paper, especially in larger pieces, is rather hard to find back home, or else expensive.

When the elementary school teacher learned I could do origami, she insisted that I make some and bring it to class to show the kids. She also mentioned the possibility of Origami Time in class, time permitting. So now my homework is to fold origami. Terrible! Ugh! I hate my life! Anyway, I found a black laquered box in the house that I decided to use to house my origami so I could bring it to school unharmed. Turns out it's a bento box (Japanese lunch box). Explains why I found it with the tupperware. My coworkers asked me if I'd be eating origami for lunch today. I should learn to make awesome-looking origami Japanese food and really freak them out!

The people I talk to are often surprised to learn that Americans know what origami is, even more surprised that we call it 'origami'. The books I brought are definitely much more complicated than anything most of them have seen, so they might get the idea that Americans/Westerners are better at origami. They do have a tendency to generalize based on the nearest foreigner. I think it will be a while before I can explain, and I may never be able to convince them that it's fairly rare for Americans to be as interested/devoted/obsessed with origami as I am. But oh well.

One thing I've noticed how quickly I'm learning how to translate animal names into Japanese, in part due to origami and in part because of the wildlife, which consists of bugs (mushi) and frogs (kaeru) and bats (komori) mostly. But I've also learned giraffe (kirin), monkey (saru), elephant (zo), turtle (kame), and lizard (I only remember the consonants on that one...).

Oh man - totally just got petted (rather roughly) by a dude saying 'kawaii kawaii' (cute cute; this is every Japanese person's favorite adjective). Who is this guy? Oh!! My neighbor! Weird. Hello Oyama san! I doubt he ever did that to Jay.