‘Paris Syndrome’ leaves Japanese tourists in shock – msnbc.com The Japanese are the worst at doing some cultural research before they go someplace. This is what happens.
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.
Found by Eric Blumenfeld.
>> pedro said, on August 26th, 2009 at 4:57 am
>> What I don’t get is the kind of trauma they develop.
I don’t totally get-it either, but it’s a well-known phenomenon and not just in Paris. And not just the Japanese.
Living overseas, I TWICE had to help rescue American travelers who psychologically went off the deep-end.
In one case, the person literally stayed rolled-up in ball and wouldn’t leave her room for the two weeks (or so) it took to arrange for her to leave. (I forget what she did for the bathroom!)
In the second case, the person went totally manic and spend all her money racing around the country, making totally bogus business deals.
>> Improbus said, on August 26th, 2009 at 5:39 am
>> @Greg
>> Maybe that is why I have never cared to travel internationally. I’m too insular. That and I don’t have the time and/or money. I don’t even have a passport.
I’m just the opposite — I love seeing different places. Best yet is to stay some place long enough to connect.
Americans don’t HAVE to live in a cultural bubble — it’s’ possible to get some pretty cool cultural exposure right here but most people don’t do it. It’s not easy though — it may be easier to buy an airplane ticket and go to a country than to penetrate that same ethnic community in America.
they do not eat enough prozac as a culture
Having visited both Paris and Tokyo myself, this sounds about right. For a Westerner, Japan is about as foreign a place as you can hope to find. France, well, let’s just say I found everything I’d ever heard…good and bad, completely true. Paris is both beautiful and suprisingly gritty. The people are beautiful, but honestly do smell worse than any place I’ve ever visited.
I remember one day walking past a smartly dressed, extremely attractive couple on the way out of the cafe. The woman could easily be a model, and the guy, well, as hard as I tried to hold it in, I gagged out loud from his BO as they walked by. I’m just a typical Ugly American, I guess.
You got me there Greg. About the closest I get to social public contact is going down to the River Market on Saturdays to get my produce for the next week and have breakfast outside at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/succotash-kansas-city"Succotash and people watch. I am sort of like a tourist in my own city.
#20 Interesting. I’ve never heard of these kinds of events. I must look deeper into it.
The rudest people I met in Paris were the Japanese. They constantly disobeyed the rules. Clogged the displays and ran us over. It was all I could do not to slug them.
I grew up in Japan as well. I took the pushing and pulling in a crowd as due course, but now when not in Japan and they just push ahead of me in an unorganized queue, I also have to suppress the urge to slug the Japanese who are doing it. Chinese and Koreans are more polite in a crowd.
You’d think they were invading Manchuria or something.
@bobbo
That post deserves a (rim shot).
#2
You’re probably not Asian and you’re probably blind to what’s going on. It’s great that you’re not seeing any of these racist things going on in other countries. However, there are racist people everyone including the lovely Paris. I have family living there and they couldn’t be any more segregated if they were living here in the past. Seriously, visit the towns and cities a few miles away from your favorite places like Paris and London and you’ll be in ghetto places that the city refuses to do anything about. Ah, the good life.
Traveling exposes one to new and sometimes unpleasant experiences, which some people, westerners too, are unable to cope with. My own experience of Paris was a summer holiday spent during a garbage collector strike, when it looked like Gadansk at New Year.
>> pedro said, on August 26th, 2009 at 7:22 am
>> #20 Interesting. I’ve never heard of these kinds of events. I must look deeper into it.
I agree, it is interesting.
I have heard that some countries have a special form of this psychosis which is a kind of sensual ecstatic swooning. In Israel it is religious and in Italy it is more cultural… and sexual! I’ve heard it happens in Paris, too. (that’s the only three countries.)
Do I remember correctly that you lived in Mexico? Probably it happens there, I would guess but maybe quite a few Americans have at previous exposure to Mexican culture, reducing the shock some.
#32 No, I live a little further south of Mexico. But I have travelled rather extensively, so this kind of emotional responses by tourists are rather new & puzzling to me.
Reality just sucks.
What is more is socially isolating, Video games or travel brochure?
I’ve travelled more widely than a lot of people and haven’t had or run into those types of psychological issues with travellers.
However, my suspicion is that if there are issues, it is magnified when travelling to countries with other languages. Personally, I do really prefer countries that speak English as a primary language (and have all the signs in English).