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"Have you seen Mr. Orange Farmer?" asked my neighbor, in Japanese.
She was standing at my front door, huddled under a small umbrella in the rain on a Wednesday afternoon. I was in the middle of eating my lunch.
I hadn't seen him.
She looked around as if he might appear, then left to rejoin a group of people. They continued up the mountain in search of the farmer, who they eventually located.
Though the encounter was brief, this was the moment I realized that I was in a very remote community, and had somehow become a small part of it. |
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It was September 2018 when I moved to Japan and made myself a home there, deep in the Japanese countryside on the Kii Peninsula.
I never thought it would be so isolating to live somewhere so beautiful, but that was life in Ena.
Surrounded by mountains on all sides, except for the sea, this tiny fishing village looks out onto a single lonely island. There's only one shop -- a store that sells fishing equipment, snacks and sake. Ena's single cafe only opens on sunny days and closes at sunset.
Farmers grow oranges in the hills or tend to crops in the terraced fields.
As a foreign outsider, I stood out. Cars would slow down, their occupants wanting to take a look at me as I walked to the shop, locals wondering what on earth I was doing there. |
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