Daniel Wells begins a new life as an assistant junior high school
teacher in the rural Japanese village of Tonoharu. Isolated from those
around him by cultural and language barriers, he leads a monastic
existence, peppered only by his inept pursuit of the company of a fellow
American who lives a couple towns over. But contrary to appearances, Dan
isn't the only foreigner to call Tonoharu home. Across town, a group of
wealthy European eccentrics are boarding in a one-time Buddhist temple,
for reasons that remain obscure to their gossiping neighbors.