It is believed that a wish will come true after folding 1,000 paper cranes and walking along the trail made by lining up the cranes.
Although University students are not attempting to fold 1,000 cranes, they learn a new origami technique each week at Coffman Union. The Japanese art involves folding paper into animals, figures and shapes.
The free workshops are sponsored by the Culture Corps Program, which provides tuition assistance to international students working toward a University faculty project.
The Asian American Student Cultural Center and the Minnesota International Student Association are also sponsors of the workshop.
Mayumi Amada, a College of Liberal Arts student and Culture Corps awardee, discusses origami history at the workshops.
Believed to have begun in the first or second centuries in China, origami became practiced widely by Japanese nobility as early as the fourth century. sMuslim traders in the eighth century transported their own version of folded-paper art to Europe.
Origami became widely popular in the West as a hobby and has become an attractive way to decorate packages and gifts.

V. Paul Virtucio welcomes comments at [email protected].