As a child growing up in a Tokyo suburb, Minako Hata would spend her after-school hours making origami figures with girlfriends.

Folding and creasing, folding and creasing, Hata’s little fingers would transform square slips of paper into shapely creations. Lovingly created baskets, animals and flowers were presented with pride to family members and friends.

When she was in the third grade, Hata - now a music therapy senior - remembers spending weeks making origami for her sick grandfather.

“My family and my friends made 1,000 paper cranes and we took it to him,” Hata recalls. “I was constantly making paper cranes then. Every free minute I had I would just fold.”

A Japanese symbol for peace and healing, 1,000 paper cranes are often given to sick relatives and friends.

Every year, thousands of cranes are sent to Hiroshima, Japan, to commemorate the city’s atomic bombing during World War II.

Derived from words that literally mean “to fold paper,” for many Japanese, origami is a hobby learned at a young age and practiced into senility.

“My grandmother really likes it,” Hata said. “She’s given me stuff she’s made that are pretty hard things that I can’t even make.”

“It’s nice to see people really surprised to see how a piece of paper can become a beautiful crane or a basket or different animals,” she said. “People seem very pleased to see that and I’m pleased to see people when they can appreciate that.”

According to many historians, the art now known as origami has been appreciated for as long as there’s been paper