Choosing Beggars

Or the Japanese.

The guy who lived across the street from me when I was a kid lived on a decommissioned farm and was a bit of an arborist, among other things. Apparently he had some kind of ornamental tree that was valuable. One night the fucking Yakuza busted through his back gate, cut down his tree, and stole it.

At least that's how he tells it. Some shady Asian looking dudes had approached him about the tree earlier and he'd told them to get lost. They may not have actually been the Yakuza, but the story sounds much better if they were.