Stranger than Fiction

[ssanjinika]

Japanese customers must apologize for their country's wartime occupation of China before getting a seat at a restaurant in former Manchuria or find another place to eat, Japan's Kyodo news agency said Tuesday.

No Japanese had tried to enter the restaurant in the northeastern Chinese city of Jilin since it started the new apology policy and hung a sign that read "Japanese people barred from entry."

"We totally welcome those Japanese customers who can correctly view history," the manager, surnamed Tian, was quoted as saying.

"But as for those customers who still refuse to admit to history, we want to say we don't like them."

Staff at the Western-style restaurant were told to ask Japanese customers who walked through the door to give their views of Japan's 1931-1945 occupation of parts of China, including the northeast, and to turn away those who did not apologize and share the owner's opinions, Kyodo said.

Many Chinese feel Japan has never owned up to atrocities committed during its occupation, including the 1937 Rape of Nanjing in which Beijing says as many as 300,000 Chinese men, women and children were slaughtered by Japanese troops.

The 1948 Tokyo war crimes tribunal found Japanese troops killed 155,000 people, mainly women and children.

China has repeatedly asked Japan to "take history as a mirror" and "correctly" view history to repair ties between the two countries, which this year have sunk to their lowest point in decades.