https://catapult.co/stories/live-from-kosuge-village

It was more than a little odd when I patroned the tiny Kosuge Village grocery store, overlooked by jagged mountains, and saw another white guy besides me in the store for the first time, with long hair, camo pants, and combat boots, holding an armful of potatoes.

“Whoa,” he said, with an American accent.

“Hello,” I mumbled.

I turned and spied yet another white man, this one sporting the lumberjack look: flannel and jeans, red beard and Timberlands, bent over the ice cream cooler rooting around like a honeying bear. When he stood up, he blinked and dodged back as if I’d thrown something. “Whoa,” he coughed.

Whoa was right.

“We’re here for a trance concert,” Camo declared when I asked.

“What?”

“A trance concert. You know, bright lights, bass, crazy times, jivey tunes. There’s going to be like five hundred people out there.”

“Wait, you’re not here for the concert?” Flannel asked.

“No. I live here.”

Their mouths opened, and so did mine. There was a trance concert in the Japanese village of nine hundred people, and I didn’t know about it.

“You gotta come,” Camo said, his name Nick. “The concert’s in a campground, and the music just fits in so well with nature.”

I furrowed my brows. I hadn’t thought I could be more surprised than I already was.