这是篇原刊3月28日Los Angeles Times的文章，今天被《参考消息》转载（3月31日第6版）。《参考消息》偶尔会登一些关于日本这个国度的小事，比如人的精神风貌、社区组织乃至城市交通等等，每篇都很不长，但却能给人留下非常深刻的印象。今天读了这篇No crime too small in Tokyo（东京：犯罪无小事）之后，我终于下决心要写点什么了。

　　两年多前去日本时，我在东京一带自由的游历了几天。我冒着一定的风险看了像靖国神社这样的地方，但日本人的高素质和他们的精神风貌同样给我留下了深刻印象。这些印象给我的影响太大了，以致于现在看到广州地铁里抢上抢下的“热闹”场面时，心里还是会有种说不出的苦涩。

　　闲话少说。我附上No crime too small in Tokyo的原文，不过我想许多读者还是乐意看中文，不妨让我简单介绍一下。Bruce Wallace是Los Angeles Times驻东京的一名记者，他常用的交通工具是一辆从来不上锁的、破旧的自行车。有一天晚上，他发现自行车被偷了；正当他为在安全的日本碰到失窃—— 而且是这样无价值的自行车被窃—— 感到惊奇的时候，他接到一名警察的电话。一位驻守治安岗亭的警察拦下了偷自行车的人，并通过计算机中心查到了车的主人，于是Bruce到岗亭拿回了自行车，他为日本警察一丝不苟的工作作风所感动。文章还附了一张照片，Bruce在岗亭前面带微笑地推着自行车，那名警察制服笔挺地站在岗亭里，向读者致意。

　　在日本，连自行车失窃这样的“小”事都得到认真的对待，让我觉得某国很有“落差”。前些日子看到新闻联播，报导公安局还是村委会救助陷入暴雪中的一名孕妇并大肆称赞的时候，我觉得奇怪：这些难道不是他们本来就应该做的事情吗？什么才算“应该”做的事情呢？

　　中国人对日本的感情很微妙，不过这应该并不妨碍我们借鉴他们的优点并学习之。就大多数人来说，对社会说三道四不能产生什么实际效果，倒不如先从自己改造起。如果我们像日本人一样，能让认真对待“小事”成为一种习惯，那可以减少多少损失，又可以创造多少财富呀。

附：No crimes too small in Tokyo 原文，地址 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bike28mar28,1,445262.story?ctrack=1&cset=true。

TOKYO -- This story begins with a crime.

Under normal circumstances, there is no reason anyone would want to steal my bike. It's a basic get-around-town model that cost $150. It was the biggest bicycle a Japanese department store carried and it's still too small for me. The chain grinds on every rotation, although that may have to do with the fact that I leave it out in the rain and the bike is now covered in rust.

It has a bell but no night light as required by Japanese law — which, as you'll see, is a misdemeanor that the Japanese police choose to enforce.

But the guy who stole my bike from outside a Tokyo train station one recent Saturday night wasn't looking for anything flashy. He was drunk — it was payday and he had over-celebrated. He had slept well past his stop and was kicked off the last train of the night at the last station on the line. It was a crime of necessity: Steal the wheels or walk.

My bicycle was available because I never lock it. Not even when I'm leaving it outside a busy train station overnight.

This is Japan. Nobody steals your stuff here. Safest place in the developed world. You can look it up in the guidebooks.

It's a silly stereotype, of course. Tokyo's crime rate may be much lower than that of Los Angeles, but that doesn't mean it's free of petty thieves (or robbers, killers and gangsters). But live here awhile and enough anecdotal experience piles up to feed complacency. I've been chased by people who want to return a dropped coin. I've left my cellphone in a park, come back the next morning, and found it on the bench where I'd set it down.

Having moved to Tokyo from London, where your cellphone wasn't safe in your pocket, I found this amazing. After a short time in a low-crime society, old habits changed. I would leave my briefcase unattended on a train, for example. And I stopped locking my bike.

I left it unclamped outside stores and restaurants, the lock wrapped uselessly around the bar under my seat. I'd leave it out all night in the driveway, unchained. One summer vacation, I left all four family bikes sitting unlocked in the driveway for three weeks.

So I was more embarrassed than angry when I went back to get my bike that Sunday morning and found it gone.

No kidding, I hear you saying. But I was so surprised I thought the ever-efficient Tokyo bicycle attendants might have impounded it for not being parked in a designated bicycle rack. Tokyo is awash in bikes, and despite long rows of parking stands at every station, there are never enough spaces.

I was still contemplating a visit to the impounded bike lot a day later when an officer from a neighboring ward office of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police called me at home.

Officer Shinya Yoshioka had recovered my bike and captured the thief.

OFFICER Yoshioka works out of a tiny, two-room outpost called a koban, a staple of community policing in Japan. These substations are scattered across Japanese neighborhoods, a way for the police to keep an eye on the comings and goings and, in theory at least, quickly respond to a crime or accident.

In my experience, kobans appeared to be little more than glorified information booths where people stop in to ask for directions. The most common sight at a koban is a uniformed officer hunched over his desk map, tracing a route with his finger for a confused citizen.

But it was from his koban in Suginami Ward about three miles from my home that Yoshioka had spotted the bike thief. It was after midnight, and the cops were on the lookout for suspicious behavior. Suginami is a high break-and-enter neighborhood, Yoshioka tells me later (another blow to the stereotype), one of the worst in Tokyo.

The guy on my bike was obviously very drunk, a crime in itself, Yoshioka explains. The big knapsack on his back also attracted attention: It could have held tools for breaking into homes.

And the bike had no night light.

So Yoshioka ordered him to stop.

Incredibly, the thief did. This speaks volumes about the Japanese respect for authority. The cops were on foot. The thief was on a bike. Japanese cops carry small guns, hidden from view. Put an Angeleno bike thief in the same situation and he keeps biking. Picks up his pace. Maybe allows himself a laugh.

After determining he wasn't carrying anything to jimmy open a window or door, the cops turned their attention to the bike. Where did he get it? The crook opted to take his chances on talking his way out of trouble.

"I bought it," he told the cops. "For $30."

Mistake. Too much detail. Nobody sells a bike for $30, the cops told him. They took him in for questioning and 40 minutes later had a confession.

Nice work, I tell Yoshioka when he recounts the story. But what would you have done if he hadn't stopped?

"We would have chased him on our official bikes," he says. He points to a battered bike with a basket on the back.

"Is it fast enough?" I ask him.

"Oh, it can't compete with yours," he says. "But we would have done our best."

YOSHIOKA knew the bike was stolen as soon as he checked the registration number on the little yellow sticker that is slapped on every bike frame sold in Japan. One call to the computer center and Yoshioka knew that I was the bike's owner, knew where I lived, and, for some reason, knew how old I am.

He called me at home. When could I pick it up?

Yoshioka wanted to return the bike personally. I would have to provide some details, such as pointing out on a map the precise spot from which the bike was taken (to make sure it matched the thief's version). Finding a time that worked for both of us took a little work, all negotiated over several phone calls through Hisako Ueno, a Times reporter and interpreter.

When it began raining on the morning of the appointed day, Yoshioka called to suggest postponing until the weather was better.

This one stolen bike seemed to be taking up a lot of police time, I said to Hisako. Isn't this a bit unusual?

Not at all, Hisako said. She told me about the time she reported her bike stolen to the police. When she called them a few days later to say she had found it abandoned near a busy train station, they excitedly told her to leave it right there. The thief might come back for it, they said.

Two detectives staked out her bike for six hours. The thief never showed.

When I finally get to the police station, Yoshioka isn't there. He's on duty at the koban, so I'm introduced instead to Nobuo Taguchi, the regional station chief who will do the paperwork necessary to free my bike.

Taguchi ushers Hisako and me into a small, windowless room. He plunks a file folder with the case paperwork onto the table. He slides two Polaroid pictures across the desk at me.

They show the thief standing sheepishly in front of the train station. In both shots, he is pointing to a chain link fence. It is a feature of Japanese police work that suspects are taken to the scene of their crime to confess their misdeeds. "This is where he took the bike," Taguchi says.

I recognize the spot. Not quite where I had parked it.

Close enough, I tell Taguchi.

He was pretty drunk, Taguchi says.

The cops had fingerprinted the thief and taken a mug shot. But because I had never reported the bike stolen, the police decided to let him off with a warning.

Not that I would have wanted to see a 23-year-old father of two go to jail. "He was a good father," Taguchi says. "The envelope with his weekly pay had not been opened. He was bringing it home to hand over to his wife."

I sign a document asserting that the bike was being returned "without major damage" and acknowledging that the thief "was feeling sorry about what he had done." I look at the paper. It's in Japanese but I can see that the police have valued the stolen property at less than $50. For a moment, I'm insulted.

But Taguchi seems pleased I've come to claim the bike. He wheels my humble two-wheeler out of storage and hands it off to me like a proud father to a son at Christmas. I point out the lock wrapped under the seat and we share a laugh. Taguchi bows as I walk it out.

I still want to thank Officer Yoshioka for catching the thief and for all his phone calls to arrange the bike's return. So Hisako and I walk my bike over to his koban about a mile away.

I praise him for his good work. Repeat the self-deprecating line about being too lazy to take three seconds to loop my lock around the wheel.

The policeman cracks only the faintest of smiles. I'll lock it from now on, I quickly promise him.

"Please," he says.

We say goodbye and I hop on my bike for the ride home. I sink much lower than usual.

The guy wasn't too drunk to adjust my seat, I grumble.

I raise it back as high as it will go and start to pedal off. I hear the familiar groan of the rusty chain. I pick up the pace.

It's getting dark. And I don't have a light.