Faces of Bega: From organic farming to origami artist - meet Reiko Healy

She originally comes from Osaka, Japan, which is a large port city and commercial centre on the island of Honshu, but came to Australia on working holiday visa in her late teens. She was able to travel Australia and worked on farms picking fruit and as a waitress.

It was around that time when she first met her husband Wayne Healy, originally from Queensland, in a youth hostel in Tasmania. The pair travelled together for a while before she had to return to Japan. They stayed in close contact and after a few years she returned to Australia to live with Wayne. That was 32 years ago.

They lived in Tasmania for 10 years and Reiko worked as a guide for Japanese tourists. She loved her role as she was able to take the tourists on walking tours to places like Cradle Mountain. She enjoyed being able to share her love of the Australian natural environment with other Japanese people.

"There wasn't many Asian people or people of colour [living in Tasmania at the time], but I used to look at myself in shop windows and than realise oh I look different, I'm not Western.

"But I never get discriminated against here [in Bega], maybe in Hobart a bit but this area has a really great community, lots of diversity," she said.

Reiko was still learning English at the time and said it often felt alienating at parties when people were laughing and making jokes and she didn't know what was being said. She said it was frustrating and would really upset her.

After their time in Tasmania, Reiko and Wayne decided to WWOOF, which stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms, a program that is run all over the world.

They travelled all up and down the East Coast of Australia and worked on a number of organic farms, both in the tropics and farms further south. When they came to the Bega Valley around 22 years ago, they worked on a number of farms before deciding to settle here.

"WWOOFing was a great way to find out about the area, if you just visit the town as a tourist you only see the surface parts. You don't know much about the people, what's happening, and what community activities there are," she said.

They decided to stay in Bega due to the fact it was warmer than Tasmania and it had beautiful warm winter's days. Reiko also said it was important to find a place that still had the four seasons which was familiar to her.

They also loved the local community and found others who were interested in sustainability and alternative lifestyles.

"This block was $32,000 and we just had enough to pay it in cash, we didn't need to borrow and it's in the middle of town, so you don't need to drive and use petrol, Bega has beautiful soil, and we met so many beautiful people."

They had thought they would later buy a farm but decided against it due to the distance it would take them to drive into town, "You don't need a big land to be self-sufficient," she said.

Although they don't grow as much as they used to, Wayne still prioritises the garden and grows a lot of fruit and vegetables during the summertime.

Reiko really loves getting involved in the community while still being able to make a living doing what she loves. She is a member of various local galleries, volunteering her time and selling her jewellery, and handmade clothing.

The origami she folds for her handmade earrings is a paper folding technique she learnt from her grandmother and mother. She said that it is a part of daily life in Japan for children.

"It's fascinating that you can make any sort of shape just from a piece of paper."

In a regular year, she would travel back to Japan to visit family and shop for origami paper, fabric, and dressmaking supplies. Since the pandemic however, she has had to find ways to diversify her business and has recently started indigo tie dying, making fabric face masks, and doing more dressmaking.

Reiko is also part of the Stonewave Taiko Drumming group from Bega and beamed with pride when she mentioned that the drumming featured in the opening ceremony in the Tokyo Olympics on July 23.

"I was brought up with it, when you have a festival in Japan there's always a Taiko drum and a bamboo flute, which I play too, so those two things you grow up with, so they are really familiar things for Japanese people.

"Festival means Taiko drum. It's really uplifting and cheerful and it can be physically a good work out, or could be just for the music, or learning, or coordination," she said.

Reiko said she found the Bega community really welcoming and accepting when she first moved here which has continued to be her experience.

"You could expect to get discriminated against, especially 20 years ago, there wasn't that much diversity, but I never really had a very bad experience in Bega.

"I feel really lucky to be here, I can be a Japanese person and I don't need to hide my identity and everything I do is showing who I am," she said.