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| Europe |
| 'Paris Syndrome' leaves tourists in shock |
| 2006-10-24 |
| At first I thought this had something to do w/Paris Hilton - silly me. PARIS - Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday. "A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses," Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche. Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them. Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying. "Fragile travelers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis," psychologist Herve Benhamou told the paper. The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed "Paris Syndrome", was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004. Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said: "In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them ... People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill feeling." A Japanese woman, Aimi, told the paper: "For us, Paris is a dream city. All the French are beautiful and elegant ... And then, when they arrive, the Japanese find the French character is the complete opposite of their own." Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. |
| Posted by:Broadhead6 |
| #10 Off Topic: Actually, I thought the series made Taiwan look very scenic. There are parts of Taiwan that are jawdroppingly beautiful. In Portuguese "Ilha Formosa" means "beautiful island". Its people are among some of the nicest I've ever met in all my travels. There are times when I literally feel "homesick" for the place. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-24 18:55 |
| #9 A few years back, Mr. exJAG was watched, followed, and finally attacked by six Moroccans in Paris. I presume it was because he's tall, fair, and with his head shaved almost to the scalp, likely to be mistaken for something else. He managed to get the f*** outta dodge. Needless to say, we'll never return. On road trips, we even drive around France to avoid the countryside, which looks and smells like, well, Mexico. It's enough to make you wish one of England's or Germany's conquests had been successful. |
| Posted by: exJAG 2006-10-24 18:31 |
| #8 The Paris of "Noir" was pretty but VERY violent. Actually, I thought the series made Taiwan look very scenic. I don't know if the scenes bore any resemblance to reality, though. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2006-10-24 18:27 |
| #7 Paree was the same in the early 1970's, OP - plus the Phrenchies seemed to think our asses were handles (fixed more than one idiot who tried that). We stopped in Britanny a few years later and it was like we were in another country. Interesting side note: My parents came to visit me when I was living in Germany and rented a car to go play tourist while I was at work. They decided they didn't have time to go all the way to Paris, but wanted to visit France, so they drove across the Rhein at Strassburg and drove north up the French side of the Rhein, coming back into Germany somewhere around Karlsruhe. When they got back to Frankfurt Daddy told me they didn't need any signs to tell them when they weren't in Germany anymore - the place was dirty. Your mileage may vary. Mine didn't. :-( |
| Posted by: Whurong Glavirt4053 2006-10-24 18:06 |
| #6 I was in Paris in 87 and found the people rude as well. There was an old WW2 generation guy that was very polite, and a bartender of college age that was a blast, but the rest were obnoxious. Stereotypes come from somewhere after all. And yes, exhale before the shove. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-10-24 18:01 |
| #5 I found Paris to be dirty, filled with rude, unwashed people, and impossible to get around in. I had no problem with the rest of France, but Paris left a bitter taste in my mouth. This was back in 1983... |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-10-24 17:04 |
| #4 Okay everyone breathe in while they push one more guy into the car! Exhale, rjschwarz, exhale. Leave the inhaling to experts like Clinton. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-24 16:43 |
| #3 That's weird... judging from the anime I've seen, most notably the "Noir" serie which was aired on teevee a couple of years ago, or the early work of Hayao Miyazaki (notably "Porco Rosso" and "Kiki's Delivery Service" which I have offered to my niece), japaneses seem to have a very outdated and idealized idea of Europe in general, and France in particular... in fact the "Noir" show was almost funny/sad, because there was such a disconnect between that foreign vision of a beautiful, colorful, illuminated France, and the depression and malaise and feelings of decline felt at home... no wonder those tourists get depressed themselves. Btw, IIRC there was an article about that very same syndrom posted here at RB quite some time ago, so this is a re-hash. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-24 16:27 |
| #2 Not to defend the French but I wonder how many Frenchman would come off of a Tokyo subway ride with some kind of feeling that the Japanese are rude. Okay everyone breathe in while they push one more guy into the car! Of course Japan doesn't market Tokyo as the city of romance but instead as a city that acts as a magnet for giant monsters so the expectations are lower. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-10-24 16:17 |
| #1 Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors I'd think this article was a joke - seeing as how the four people were plain old fashioned nuts and it's almost Nov so four isn't exacly a plague. But they have an actual syndrome name for it, so it must be real. Besides, the image of polite Japanese v/s rude French is such a fun and humorous visual. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-24 10:28 |