His Greatest Wish
Samantha Dupler (South Side High School)
The colors and sounds were everywhere, vermillion archways stretching over speckled pavement, the
foreign shouts of vendors over the music of street performers, paper lanterns hanging from above
merchants’ huts. This, in a nutshell, was the street of Nakamise-dori on a certain spring day.

It was my fourth day in Tokyo of a two week trip to Japan, and so far, I had found the entire country’s
culture juxtaposed within itself, a fascinating and sometimes dizzying blend of old meets new, a mix of
kimono-clad women and gelled-hair business men, both types different, yet the same, in the sense that they
could all call Japan their home.

With these heavy thoughts resting on my mind, I made my way through the crowded shopping street,
past the doll shops and fan stalls, through the crowds of bargain hungry shoppers. At last, I found myself at
the end of the street, standing before a statue of Buddha, smooth and glowing bronze from where thousands
of hands had rubbed it for luck. The air here was quiet, the people possessed a serene disposition, and the
loudest sound was that of the rustling of paper scraps, each scrawled with a wish tied to a small tree, in
hopes that they may come true.

I stood before the statue, taking it all in, when I noticed a small table nearby, where an old Japanese
man sat folding paper. I wandered over to the table. It looked like a type of cultural station, designed for
visitors to indulge in the Japanese art of origami. On the table, there were stacks and strips of brightly
colored paper, and laminated, yet battered, instruction sheets in both English and Japanese on how to create
paper cranes. So I sat down at the table and tried to make one of my own.

The cranes were much harder to make than they appeared, and in a matter of minutes, I had
accidentally decimated at least six sheets of paper. The old man at the table noticed my arduous attempts,
and came over to me with a smile. “No, no,” he said gently in English. “Like this.” He picked up the paper
and folded it with ease, and soon held a small red crane in his wrinkled hands. The old man set the crane on
the table and looked proudly at it. “Thank you,” I said with a smile.

His smile stretched farther when he heard my voice, and he gathered up more paper. “Ah, American?”
he asked excitedly. “Yes,” I said. “I’m from New York.” I studied the crane on the table as the old man
continued to fold more. Picking the bird off the table, I turned it over in my hands, admiring the delicate
folds. “Like this,” said the old man, taking the crane back. He pulled the tail gently, and the wings
elongated gracefully, the crane’s paper neck extending just so. He then set the crane back down on the
table, waiting for my reaction.

I leaned over across the table, to where a rainbow of paper strips lay stacked. I then smoothed the strip
out and began folding it over and around itself, forming a little pentagon. The old man watching with
amazement, I pinched the corners of the shape, puffing out its sides to form a tiny star. “For you,” I said,
and placed the star on the table.

The old man’s smile became so large, it almost seemed to split his face in two. “A star!” he exclaimed.

“An American star!” He got up and began showing my star to each and every person at the table. In the
distance, the wish trees whispered. I smiled at the old man, and began to get up from the table, but he came
back to my seat with a few parting words. “Tell your American friends; visit Japan, visit here,” he said,
hope etched into the lines on his face and buried deep in the soul of his voice. “Spread my culture,” he said,
holding my crumpled star. “For I fear it is fading fast.”
I nodded, and picked up the crane off the table, cradling it in my fingers. He nodded back to me
quickly, and then walked back over to the other side of the table, to help others with their cranes.

I turned away from the table, and made my way back to Nakamise-dori, the paper wish trees swishing
like a thousand matches striking, each lighting a fire of hope and passion.

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