Japan at the turn of the millennium. A Dutch-German couple has been living for years in Chofu, in a neighborhood called Junglaub, a small town about twenty kilometers from the center of Tokyo. He, Detlev van Heest, whom the Japanese call Heesto-san, works as a foreign correspondent for Dutch newspapers, while his wife Annelotte works at a Japanese import company for Dutch flowers. Heesto's productivity as a journalist has dried up; instead, he writes about his neighbors, such as the increasingly forgetful, lovable Mrs. Suzuki, the cancer-stricken hairdresser Mr. Bohrinsel, the desperately poor musician couple Mr. and Mrs. Siebenseen, the chef Kenzo, who never stays long at any of his numerous jobs, or the very old Mr. van Tricht, whose involvement in war crimes as a Japanese soldier in Southeast Asia during World War II remains unclear.