In a small village on the western coast of Japan, I found the perfect persimmon. I stopped my bike to pick the ripe, orange-hued orb off of a roadside tree. And as I took a bite, it succumbed to my teeth with its honey-sweet juice. ...

Noto Hanto, the Noto Peninsula, juts out 100km into the Sea of Japan, midway down the country’s west coast, and is a one-hour flight north-west of Tokyo. It is as peaceful as Tokyo is frenetic. Every now and then I pass a person, typically aged, leathery-faced and hunched, toiling over rice paddies or the immaculate gardens of neat, wooden houses in tiny rural ...