The Origami Forum

When people see you folding, what kind of reaction do you usually get? I fold at work alot, and alot of my co-workers scoffed at my paper folding. that is untill i produced a finished model. I have found that many people are amazed at what a single, uncut square of paper can be turned into.

"My kids would love that"
"My kids do that at school" (Joseil Rat!)
Mind you when I said I wanted a Friday afternoon to go to an Origami convention there was a stunned silence.
A similar reaction was presented when I requested another Friday afternoon off to attend a bagpipe convention.

one say he one make the Toys

Many people say that I should sell my folded models, but I´m very sure that nobody would buy them...
People don´t know that there is something like complex Origami and that Origami isn´t only a child´s play, so the first reaction if you tell them that your Hobby is folding, mostly is a very disregardful gaze and a very impressed one if you show them one of the more complex looking models (a very good model for this purpose is the Kawasaki-Rose from Origami for the Connoisseur, fast and easy to fold and very impressive). The next reaction is that they say that you must have too much time and that they wouldn´t be able to do that.
Oh, and I was very very often asked if I´m a kindergarten teacher...

I find that i can sell origami but mostly someone buys something from my wishlist and then i swap it for one or two of my origami models depending on what they've bought, i mostly make origami for weddings like table decorations

At my job, I used to fold something new every night. I had over 3 dozen models hanging in the entryway to the hotel when the new boss decided that no non-business decorations were to be displayed.

That was 2 weeks ago. The truckers haven't stopped asking about the origami yet.
"Where are the latest origami?"
"What happened to them folded paper thingies?"
"Aww, I was lookin' forward to seeing the latest creations."

The next reaction is that they say that you must have too much time and that they wouldn´t be able to do that.

i get that same reaction all the time. sometimes someone will ask me to teach them how to fold something, but they get frustrated because i forget thet the average person has no idea what a vallet fold is, let alone a sink or outside reverse fold.

I have had random people just walk up to me on the bus and start a conversation just because i was folding. I never knew how many people folded at my school, but just by constantly folding i met a whole bunch of people that also fold. Now you can't go down a halway without seeing some evidence of the resident origamists!

I've actually sold a kawasaki rose for like $5. A guy in my math class saw me folding one, and he wanted to know if I'd make him one out of nice paper so he could give it to his girlfriend for valentines day.

Usually when i fold in public people stare in amazement but usually people look at me like im a freak or something. For some reason people see origami as a childish hobby.

i have three nice stories concerning the reactions:

) years ago a colleague of mine asked me, if i could fold her an elephant, because she likes elephants!!! i didn´t have any diagrams for elephants, so i searched in the internet and found the homepage of some "christian". i contacted him by email and he really helped me. then i started folding, and folding, and folding. instead of receiving one elephant, my colleague got 32 of them on her birthday- one for each year.

since then i´m often asked by other colleagues, if i can fold them this or that.

only some weeks ago, since i´ve found this forum (i´m online with my private pc since then), i got to know that "therealchris" is the one, who helped me! hi, christian, thanks a lot.

) when i´m on workshops or tutorials, i can´t help but start folding. at first my neighbours ask, if this folding will become a ship (or something simple like that), and everyone is surprised, when i come up with a fluffy or a realistic elephant. at the end of such a several-days-workshopa nice gallery of models stands in front of me ...

but usually i inform the lecturer of my hobby, because otherwise he may receive the impression that his lecture is boring ...

) a very nice client of mine likes dogs, so i mentioned tofold her one. it was the pooper when i gave the pooper to her, her son (37 of age) saw this, and said that he also wants something like that. "a dog?", i asked him. "no, but maybe a biplane ..." was his answer. i think that he wanted to make a joke, that he wanted to tease me a little bit ...

well, but he didn´t reckon on me and marc kirschenbaum

franz

Hi Franz!

Here´s another reaction:
Gerwin and I want to meet you, please contact us at office at origamiaustria.at.

And a little sidenote to everyone: Please check your privat messages regularly!

i folded a lot at school and most people would stare in amazement because most of them had never seen it and some never even heard of it i had gotten a few requests in the month i had been seriously folding so i got i got used to people liking it but one day one of my friends got so jelous(hope thats spelled right) because he was a total attention hog that he came up to me and ripped the three sheets of paper i had with me that day and one of those sheets was in the middle of transforming into dragon imean, who hates dragons so yeah anyway mostly positive reactions just got to with out for those select few that are against paper

At the office:

From my boss... you've got too much time on your hands.

From a co-league... <looks at Kamiya's unicorn> that's nice.... But I'd be more impressed if you can make something with flapping wings.

Typical! Maybe this is one of reasons why I fold above all simple models, for instance with flapping wings...
I folded dimetrodon (Fumiaki Kawahata) on sunday morning and brought it to bar where we watched Grand Prix of France (formula 1). Barman said "who can that can" (I do not know how in English) and no reduction in price...

My friend and I used to fold a lot in school, but just simple, traditional models (I thought we were really good until I found this forum). In school, like rokonacdc said, people marvel at the things that you can fold out of a simplw piece of paper... I can't wait till I go back after the summer break is over, show them what I can fold now