An ageing country shows others how to manage

EVER SINCE 1495 residents of Gojome, a town in northern Japan, have gathered for a morning market. On a recent weekday, along a street of closed shops with almost no people, elderly sellers lay out their autumnal wares: mushrooms and chestnuts, okra, aubergines and pears. It was not always so empty, sighs Ogawa Kosei, who runs a bookshop on the street. He points to pictures his father took that show the scene packed with shoppers.