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Konnichiwa from Tebajima.

A few kilometres off the east coast of Shikoku, the smallest and least populated of Japan’s four main islands, the tiny islet of Tebajima is frozen in time.

There are no cars here, or shops. In fact, there are no roads, really, just one main path that sweeps around a cove where a small ferry pulls in, chugging the 15-minute trip across from the mainland six times a day.

The island is dotted with about 150 traditional wooden houses, many of them built more than a century ago in the Meiji era, when Tebajima was a bustling fishing village. Today, most of them sit empty, save about

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