Strawberry Picking
BY YURIKA CHIBA
“Carrying your wooden box from early morning
Picking strawberries
One box, how much?
The red harvest dyes our fingers
The red sunset dyes our stretched backs”
This piece is a tribute to the Issei farmers in San Jose, who worked long hours in the fields picking strawberries (often with family members, including children). I was moved to learn about how the Issei were willing workers to do this work because it was similar action of harvesting rice, when other farmers didn’t want to do it. The lyrics of verse two were written in the shape of the strawberry in hiragana. I was happy that I could blend both my taiko and art identities together in this piece, while also thinking about my Japanese heritage and history of my home here in San Jose.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yurika Chiba (Kawagoe, Japan/Toronto, Canada) began playing taiko in Tokushima, Japan in 1995 and has since played with groups in Australia and northern California. Yurika is a member of the San Jose Taiko (SJT) Audition Process class of 2006 and joined SJT's Artistic Staff in 2007, now touring internationally and nationally, as well as performing locally at festivals, schools and corporate events. She is a the coordinator of San Jose Taiko’s “Taiko for All” program focused on communities with special needs. Yurika is a regular guest instructor at the biennial North American Taiko Conferences, and was a panelist at the Women & Taiko Summer Taiko Institute in 2017.
Also a visual artist with a degree in Psychology, Yurika is deeply interested in the connection between tactile/rhythmic aesthetics and creativity in art and music as well as the applications of taiko/art to holistic and mental health. Yurika’s background in piano, dance, mixed media art, psychology and certification in TESOL combine in a unique mix to inform her work with taiko as an instrument for the individual’s expression of self and connection to community.
