BRIAN READE'S COLUMN: It's us who should say sorry, not the Japanese.

Byline: BRIAN READE 

MY GRANDAD'S way of sympathising with a victim of cruelty was to shake his head, suck his teeth and mutter: "You wouldn't even do that to a Jap."

To his generation, there was no more evil race on Earth than the little chaps from The Land Of The Rising Sun.

It's a stereotype many of us have swallowed after an unhealthy diet of Hurricane comics, war films, torture-driven game shows, Tenko and the belief that Satan put Yoko Ono on Earth to break up The Beatles.

And it's about as accurate as the notion that my Scouse grandad's now walking around heaven in a shell-suit, stealing hub-caps, butting saints and telling the Lord to "calm down".

Every time a Tokyo dignitary sets foot in Britain we demand an apology for the treatment handed out to some of our war veterans. But, having set foot in their country, I think we owe the Japanese an apology for the misguided perception of them we've perpetuated for far too long.

We have two things in common with these people. We drive on the left and we drink lots of lager. But there the similarities end. Because their level of decency, politeness and manners shames us.

Well, me anyway.

Where we greet strangers or customers with a grunt, they bow. And bow. Until they're bent double. When you part they ask you to "have a fine time today, sir".

Their honesty is astonishing. Three times now I have left a tip in a restaurant only to have the waiter race after me into the street forcing the change back on to me. I once left the equivalent of a 2p coin at a kiosk and the woman almost screamed the railway station down until I came back to collect it.

British people who work here say that you could leave a bag in the street unattended for a day and it would still be there 24 hours later.

One woman had her purse snatched in the middle of Tokyo and by the time she'd realised, and gone to the police station, it was waiting for her. They'd spotted the thief on CCTV camera and nabbed him within minutes.

They are so trusting they put vending machines stocked with beer down dark streets. And no feet go through them. The white-gloved cabbies refuse tips and if they take you to the wrong destination due to a language problem, they won't take your fare.

Honour and dignity are the keys to the Japanese. Every worker takes absolute pride in their job. You never see a scrap of litter on the streets or a word of graffiti.

I don't know whether they batter effigies of their bosses in the company basements to calm down but you never see them arguing or bibbing their horns.

You can drive past miles of tenements and high-rise flats which all look pristine. There are no sink estates, homelessness or begging and so brilliant is their public transport system that there's little city-centre congestion.

So, apart from giving Yuppies the idea that sitting around offices eating raw fish with chopsticks is cool, I can now forgive the Japanese almost anything.

And if our tattooed lads stay true to form over the next few weeks, by gathering outside pubs and singing "I'd rather be a Paki than a Jap" and the no-nonsense police knock 10 kinds of sushi out of them, I think even our Far East war veterans might finally forgive them, too.

CAPTION(S):

BOW WOW: Showing respect, Japanese-style