Cambodia Breaks New Largest Origami Display World Record
The official adjudicator handed the Guinness World Record to Hun Many, the President of the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia (UYFC). Photo: Ky Chamna
- By Meng Seavmey
- April 11, 2023 6:59 PM
PHNOM PENH – Cambodia received the Guinness World Record for the largest display of origami hearts, with nearly 4 million paper hearts being made, by far exceeding the original target of 1 million.
On April 11, the country made and exposed 3,917,805 paper hearts in front of the Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province in a performance to break a new world record. The hearts are joining together in the shape of a massive heart and the word “Khmer” in the Khmer language.
Such a large display eclipsed the precedent record, set by the U.K. in 2019 with 53,704 origami hearts.
The official adjudicator handed the Guinness World Record to Hun Many, the President of the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia (UYFC), which organized the event.
“I sincerely appreciate your sacrifice of your time and heart. We can’t depreciate even a single paper heart, because our Cambodian people – regardless of age, job, place, being disabled or not – spent their time and love folding these hearts to show their love during our hosting of the [upcoming] Southeast Asian Games and the ASEAN Para Games,” the UYFC President said.
“I hope that our heart language will only encourage people to watch the SEA Games and the ASEAN Para Games, but we will keep this heart language for Cambodia in the long run,” he added.
The purpose of the campaign was to raise money to finance athletes with disabilities.
When the goal was still to shape 1 million hearts, five companies offered to give UYFC 500 riel for each of them, giving a total of 500 million riel (about $125,000) to the campaign.
As the initial goal was exceeded, it is not clear whether these companies will increase their donation.
With this new world record added to the shelf, UYFC now holds 5 Guinness World Records.
They include the largest sticky rice cake (num ansom) weighing 4,040 kilograms, the largest Madison dance with 2,015 participants in 2015, the longest dragon boat measuring 87.3m, and the longest hand-woven scarf (krama) at 1,149.8 meters, both achieved in 2018, and the largest display of nearly 4 million origami hearts in 2023.
UYFC also plans to break its own Madison record in the coming days, during the celebrations of Angkor Sankranta in Siem Reap.
