Interview: From "Jiyujin" magazine to the "Satoyama Jujo" inn, Tsuguyoshi Iwasa showcases "the rich lifestyle of the countryside"

In 2000, Tsuguyoshi Iwasa founded the well-known Japanese lifestyle and travel magazine "Jiyujin"; four years later, just as his career was taking off, he moved from Tokyo to Minamiuonuma in Niigata Prefecture, a remote area famous for producing Japan's renowned rice, and began a life of editing magazines and farming in the countryside. "Everyone around me said: 'You're at the prime moment for career growth, yet you suddenly move to the countryside. I'm giving up on my life.'"

Having left the Tokyo metropolitan area, "Jiyujin" not only continued to publish and was highly acclaimed, but even grew from a magazine into an "agricultural corporation," developing and processing organic crops produced locally and putting them on sale under the "Organic Express" brand. Then in 2014, Tsuguyoshi Iwasa took on a new challenge, opening the "Satoyama Jujo" inn on Mount Otsu, an even more remote area than Minamiuonuma. From being viewed with skepticism, it went on to maintain a 90% occupancy rate and win multiple design awards.

Tsuguyoshi Iwasa was recently invited to Taiwan, China, to give a talk, and in an interview with "Shangyou Xiayu" he said that along the journey from "Jiyujin" to "Satoyama Jujo," "what we want to provide is a tool, a model, so that everyone can clearly understand each person's definition of a rich life and their different values, and so that everyone can experience different ways of living."