What to do when faced with a knife-wielding criminal?

Offer them tea.

That’s what a Japanese woman did in when confronted by this armed assailant.

TOKYO (Reuters) – The 30-year-old Tokyo woman was walking along a corridor in her apartment building with her daughter on Monday when a man brandishing a knife demanded money, the Asahi newspaper said.

When the housewife told him she had none, the man barged into her apartment. Hoping to calm him, the woman made the thief a cup of tea, whereupon he put his knife away and began a 20-minute monologue about his life.

The woman then gave the man 10,000 yen (47 pounds) and ran outside to call the police from a pay phone, the report said.

Police rushed to the scene, but the thief had fled and is still being sought.

Personally, I would have offered tea, followed by a shot of pepper spray and a downward slam with the closest blunt object.