
Paris syndrome - smacktoward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
======
julienchastang
I am part Parisian. (I used to live there and my family is from the city and
nice banlieue). I love Paris, but what shocks me every time I go back is the
quantity of dog poop (and also trash) in the streets and the inability of city
officials to do anything about it. Here are a few tips for visitors:

\- When interacting with locals, always start off by saying Bonjour Monsieur,
Bonjour Madame. That will help disarm cranky Parisians. If doing an AirBnb
make sure to do this when seeing people on the “palier” — stair landing in
Parisian apartment buildings.

\- Consider going to the top of the Tour Maine-Montparnasse, instead of the
Eiffel Tower. You will have 1/100th the foot traffic and you won’t be
surrounded by pickpockets. Plus you’ll be able to see the Eiffel Tower :-)

\- Check out and buy food from the local street market in your area.

\- My favorite thing to do in Paris still is flâner — to stroll about the
lovely city.

~~~
baby
I would also recommend not being too loud, French people usually are pretty
quiet in restaurants or public spaces, and being loud is frowned upon.

~~~
markdown
> French people usually are pretty quiet

It's not just French people. American tourists have a reputation in many
countries for being annoyingly loud.

~~~
rainyMammoth
As a European I'm still shocked at how loud Americans are. I cannot stay more
than a couple minutes in an American bar or pub

~~~
MrGando
Same, it's pretty rough.

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intrepidhero
Hang on. Why is everyone talking about dirty Paris streets and not about the
claim that unrealistic expectations can result in literal psychosis? Surely
this kind of mind-body connection would suggest further investigation, inform
policy on deceptive advertising, etc.

~~~
mettamage
IMO it's also _really obscure_ , 20 in 6 million.

That's about 0.0000003 chance.

Isn't there a base rate? If anyone does something anything new that's as big
as visiting Paris while coming from Japan, then I'd venture to guess that 1 in
6 million will get a psychiatric disorder. I mean, the chance is so low that I
dare to guess that it might be the base rate.

------
glennpratt
We went to Paris in a rainy November, took public transit exclusively and
stayed in a building with an elevator that could fit one suitcase, by itself,
and a shower about the same size. We saw some homelessness and scams.

And yet it was absolutely lovely. I could talk endlessly about the people, the
sites, the food (and hardly just French food) and the museums. I'm sort of
dumbfounded at people who can't see that.

No one was rude to us, even outside of tourist areas, mostly just
professional.

Of course it's not Disneyland. We had to learn language basics, checkout
travel books and scour the internet. I think this gave us rational
expectations.

Semi-related, I live in Portland, OR which has a similar climate, possibly
similar civic challenges and interestingly, a similar fascination from Japan.

[https://www.wweek.com/we-went-to-japan/](https://www.wweek.com/we-went-to-
japan/)

Oregon even uses Japanese style animation in ads, presumably because of that.

[https://m.youtube.com/user/oregon](https://m.youtube.com/user/oregon)

~~~
xtracto
Meh... in every city it depends on the place you visit. San Francisco is
horrible due to the extreme amount of homeless, addict and crazy people (I got
harassed by one of them in my last visit). Ney York people are assholes (they
just shout at you and mock you as tourist when you ask for directions). London
was really nice.. but of course I'm talking about Hyde park and surroundings.
Liverpool is beautiful, just dont go to Kensington. Paris for me was nice:
very dirty but Sacre Cour and Champs Elysees walk was nice. Berlin also very
nice.. somewhat messy and full of tourists (me being among them of course).

Mexico city is freaking ugly 90%. And insecure, but if you go to the centre or
Santa Fe , you will have a nice experience...

~~~
baby
yes if you visit San Francisco first, then Paris, then Paris seems lovely.

------
newshorts
Very interesting, I had the opposite effect.

I grew up in a very “red” part of the US and was given a very negative view of
the French (or anyone else for that matter). I was so surprised to find the
people were friendly, kind and inviting. A small French restaurant even stayed
open late because my friend and I had just arrived in Paris and had no idea of
where to find food.

The city struck me as beautiful. Everything was so clean and manicured (my
town by comparison was dirty, dusty and unkempt).

Paris destroyed my sense of exceptionalism.

~~~
ip26
I grew up in a "blue" part, and visiting third world countries opened my eyes
to, "maybe there _is_ something we are doing right in the US".

(The exaggerated liberal perspective being, we're doing it all wrong &
screwing everything up. The exaggerated conservative perspective being, we are
perfect and changing anything risks ruining everything)

~~~
taken_username
You may do many things right in the US, except the fact that you still rank
the countries into first, second and third!

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_Wintermute
I've lived in a few big cities but Paris definitely is very different to the
others. There are moments when it's like the depictions in the films: quiet
boulevards lined with Haussmann apartments sitting ontop of quaint
boulangeries. I think this is why it's such a shock when you're faced with the
rest of it which is dirty, smelly, noisy, home to 10 million people filled
with scam artists and impatient Parisians.

~~~
hodgesrm
Paris reminds me a lot of San Francisco. Both have world class neighborhoods
but also areas that are pretty awful (homelessness, crime, trash, etc.)
Personally I find Paris very similar to navigate. The not-do-good parts do not
seem much different from the Tenderloin in SF and require the same attention
to surroundings.

~~~
bsaul
I’ve also lived in SF and believe me, the problem is entirely different. It’s
just a different scale.

We’re not talking about having « diverse neighborhoods » or « sketchy
neighborhoods » ( it’s part of the fun of living in a big city). Actually i’ve
lived a huge part of my life in those neighborhoods, and criminality isn’t
such a big problem (although things are very very different if you’re a girl).

The most pressing matter for the country is the cultural gap between very
large parts of the whole french population (not just a district or a city).

The country is currently facing an identity crisis and the fact that overtly
racists political parties are close to winning every election should be a sign
that something’s going really bad there.

Unfortunately the debate is completely crippled by people who refuse to
address the issue like grown ups ( either by calling everyone a racist, or by
actually being racist)

------
rayiner
I thought the people in Paris were surprisingly nice. (I speak a bit of
French, and in my experience people were very friendly if you at least tried
to communicate in French to begin with.) That said, Parisian bathrooms give me
nightmares. The only place outside of Bangladesh where I’ve seen squat
toilets.

~~~
pen2l
Squat toilets permit a straighter path for stool to pass through:
[https://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20180115/02/r-m-
hiro/8f/e2...](https://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20180115/02/r-m-
hiro/8f/e2/j/o0634053614112148113.jpg)

Here is a study that confirms this:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12870773](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12870773)

Did Parisians continue speaking to you in French? I found that they
immediately switched to English when I spoke French to them. I'm level B1,
what level would you say you are/how many years of instruction have you got?

~~~
viscanti
> Did Parisians continue speaking to you in French? I found that they
> immediately switched to English when I spoke French to them.

I've found this to be the case too. But their English is almost always better
than my French. I've found that attempting French does produce a much more
friendly response than just going in an speaking English loudly.

------
bsaul
let’s be honest. Paris center is really great, but all the rest is trash by
any standard (not even the japanese one).

And i’m not even talking about suburbs, which people coming from the airport
must go through. People are absolutely not what you’d expect french to look
like ( and i’m not talking about size), public transport are a total trash,
working only half the time correctly.. Restrooms makes us look like a third
world country, etc.

I could go on and on , but i’ll just sum it up with one anecdote : i spent a
month in japan, and this is the first time in my life i felt ashamed of the
way we treat tourists in Paris. Food in touristic places is garbage, people
are generally rude, etc etc..

My advice if you want to visit paris : rent something nice in the center, and
take a cab straight from the aiport, and make the ride by night.

~~~
tristor
I think you're being downvoted for having a negative viewpoint, but what you
said is very accurate. I'm not French, but I've spent some time in France and
loved it. France is a gorgeous country and people were generally friendly and
welcoming, Paris is the exception. There are parts of Paris which are nice,
but a significant chunk of the city is exceptionally dreary (partly due to
architectural design, heavy use of brutalism, etc), dirty, and many people I
encountered in Paris were very rude to me, even before I opened my mouth.

I've traveled all over the world, Paris is not anywhere near that bad compared
to many places I've been, and generally I enjoy most places I spend time in
because there's something positive to be found everywhere. But I wanted to
reinforce your viewpoint, because it is not inaccurate, even though I find it
to be somewhat one-sided. I don't believe sharing this deserves downvotes,
especially in the context of the link.

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endorphone
I'd seen this Paris syndrome thing a number of times before visiting over the
past year. It set my expectations low enough that it paradoxically helped make
my visit a delight.

People were delightful. Streets were clean enough. The subway system was older
but functional and fine. It felt like any large city that wasn't built in the
past 20 years (e.g. Shanghai) and has history and a broad demographic. It had
the gritty underside of any large, bustling city, and many of the faults I
could equally apply to London, NYC, and other major cities.

Loved it. Plan on going again. I never felt unsafe or uncomfortable, and was
always in awe of the beauty and history.

------
agumonkey
Potentially Paris current mayor wants to turn the city into a mostly car free
place. That might change a lot of the mentality. Let's review this syndrome in
~2025.

As other people say, medium sized cities are gentler, and countryside is
friendlier.

e.g: was lost in a small town, and after roaming around in front of some tiny
store, the cashier came out proposing to help me. I didn't even try to ask her
from outside, she naturally took the initiative.

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jkuria
What do visitors expect Paris to be like? What do they find instead? The
article is missing this critical piece of information.

~~~
unreal37
I guess it's expected to be self-evident.

Expectation of Paris: "the city of light", "the city of love", the home of
iconic structures such as the Eiffel Tower, home of fashion, moulin rouge

Reality of Paris: construction, traffic, fences, security, getting scammed on
the street... a normal city

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
But the food is pretty great.

------
xorand
Paris is a big city, that's all. The Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge are not
among the most interesting things to see in Paris. People are not like in a
Disney movie.

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yesenadam
I'm surprised no-one so far in the comments mentioned the smell of piss in the
streets - has that changed? Seems like it must have. I was there in the mid
80s.

I loved it. Particularly amazing melt-in-your-mouth croissants for breakfast
and delicious huge (almost apple-sized) strawberries bought by the kilo. And
the art and architecture, of course.

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dvfjsdhgfv
Happened to me too, once! I remember passing by the Moulin Rouge, which I
imagined like this:

[https://cdn.civitatis.com/francia/paris/entradas-moulin-
roug...](https://cdn.civitatis.com/francia/paris/entradas-moulin-rouge.jpg)

But instead I saw something like this:

[https://dimg02.c-ctrip.com/images/100k1900000162nrc547D_Z_64...](https://dimg02.c-ctrip.com/images/100k1900000162nrc547D_Z_640_10000.jpg)

(Plus dirt, bad smell, etc.)

But in general, Paris is a beautiful city with many really nice places. Can be
very inspiring for a short stay.

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rbrbr
Who can blame them. Apart from the very center of Paris (that makes up maybe
10% of the city) with the old town and museums and cafes Paris is a very ugly
city.

~~~
moystard
You clearly don’t know Paris.

------
artsyca
I've had this reaction to working in some large corporations

I went in thinking it would be just amazing and expecting an exemplary brand
experience only to land in HR hell with some dirty scoundrel managers and
rampant corruption all through the ranks compounded by lame duck self-dealing
executives

I eventually had to be airlifted out after a bad reaction similar to a
psychotic break

People it doesn't have to be this way!

------
pier25
Paris has some iconic landmarks but other than that I find it's a very
unpleasant and ugly city.

If you want to see a beautiful imperial and romantic type of city go to
Vienna.

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hokkos
Paris syndrome is fake news :

[https://web.archive.org/web/20110719120910/http://www.aphp.f...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110719120910/http://www.aphp.fr/site/actualite/mag_voyage_pathologique.htm)

"No, because if these people looked good in their own skin, it was only an
appearance. Indeed, they already had slight mood disorders, or a general
malaise, but which remained unexplained or unconscious. "During the
consultation, there is often a history that goes unnoticed, which neither the
patient nor those around him or her have been aware of. At that time, these
people were somehow predisposed to psychic decompensation," explains Dr.
Mahmoudia. And all it takes is a triggering factor for the pathology to reveal
itself. Also, being in an unfamiliar environment can lead to a distressing
experience and reveal certain disorders. However, the journey is not the only
revelation. "The same type of disorder can also occur at home, following a
completely different traumatic event such as the loss of a job, a break-up
with a loved one, or an assault," adds Dr. Mahmoudia. But in the context of a
trip, what would have been a "banal" depression takes on a much more dramatic
expression.

In a second case, rare and more serious, the trip is part of the patient's
delirium, it is part of a pre-existing psychiatric pathology. It is then
described as a "pathological journey". Dr. Mahmoudia remembers this Japanese
woman brought to the emergency room for behavioural disorders. "From Tokyo she
said she heard the voice of the Virgin Mary begging her to come in front of
the Notre-Dame de Paris church. In such a situation, the patient obeys the
orders of a voice that he hears, but which is hallucinatory in nature and
actually belongs to his own delirium. In other situations, the journey becomes
an escape, a survival instinct. "Some patients have only one idea in mind: to
flee at all costs from the haunting voice that persecutes them and prevents
them from sleeping. Travel can therefore be a symptom, among others, of a
pathology that is already known. "The journey then becomes part of a delirious
process that belongs to the patient's psychiatric picture," concludes Dr.
Mahmoudia.

These two situations are different. In one case, the journey is part of the
patient's delirium, in the other, it is the triggering event of his pathology.
But in both situations, Dr. Mahmoudia prefers to speak of pathological travel
or travel-related psychopathology, rather than traveller's syndrome. The
latter term is used incorrectly, as it originally defines a completely
different situation. Also called "Stendhal syndrome", the traveller's syndrome
is actually a state of ecstasy accompanied by a strong emotional charge when
in contact with a work of art. This experience remains quite rare and affects
the most sensitive souls. Their heart accelerates, they are taken by vertigo,
they suffocate. And then they quickly come to their senses. This emotion is
not a real psychological disorder and therefore does not lead to any
particular treatment. It was Graziella Magherini, a Florentine psychiatrist
who, in 1990, described for the first time this surprising syndrome linked to
travelling in art cities. Surprised to receive emotionally shocked tourists,
she wondered about the effects of an artistic overdose. She then made a link
with Stendhal's travel diaries, which in 1817, on leaving the church of Santa
Croce in Florence, reported: "I had arrived at that point of emotion where the
heavenly sensations given by the Fine Arts and passionate feelings meet. On
leaving Santa Croce, I had a heartbeat, life was exhausted at home, I walked
with the fear of falling". These are certainly moving words, but they are not
comparable to the emergency cases that Dr. Mahmoudia is able to meet in his
consultation."

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55555
There is a similar Japan syndrome in NEETs and weebs who spend years obsessing
over how amazing living in Japan would be and who then finally move there and
realize it isn't as it is depicted in their anime and porn and on their
imageboard

