Echigo Yuzawa seems to have everything going for it. Just one hour and 15 minutes from Tokyo by bullet train, the charming mountain town is famed for its onsen — or hot springs — excellent skiing and as the home of Japan’s best rice and sake.
It even acquired an aura of literary sophistication and glamour when Yasunari Kawabata became the first Japanese author to win a Nobel Prize for his 1968 novel Snow Country. Set in early 20th-century Echigo Yuzawa, it tells the story of a minor Tokyo aristocrat’s love affair with a small-town geisha.
Today, the town epitomises the key challenge facing Japan’s rural economy: adverse demographics. As such it is a story whose relevance reaches well beyond the world’s third-biggest economy to countries facing similar developments.