Paris Syndrome, first published by the 2004 French psychiatric journal Nervure,
is a condition in which affected Japanese tourists suffer psychological breakdowns and possible psychosis due to the
extreme culture shock between their expectations of Paris and the
city's reality. As one Japanese woman explained to a Parisian
newpaper, "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"(2). While over a
million Japanese citizens visit France annually, approximately a
dozen of those travelers (primarily young women) are forced to return to
Japan because of the condition.
Professor Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist living in France,
first identified Paris Syndrome some twenty years ago. As he explains,
Parisian attitudes are often at odds with those of polite, Japanese
society; and when compounded over time (typically within three months)
with a difficult language barrier and other sources of
disappointment,—when Japanese tourists discover, for example, that the
French show little interest in Japan, a sharp contrast to the near
obsession the Japanese seem to have with France—some tourists find
themselves developing symptoms, such as "irritability, a feeling of
fear, obsession, depressed mood, insomnia, and an
impression of persecution by the
French"(3).
In 2006, two Japanese women reported that their hotel room was being
bugged as part of a malicious plot against them. Stranger yet are past
reports filed by the Japanese embassy, describing incidents including a
man who began believing he was King Louis XIV, and a woman
who thought she was being attacked by microwaves. While the
embassy keeps a 24-hour hotline for those feeling the stress of
culture shock, the treatment for Paris Syndrome is always the same,
regardless of the details: a return flight back home to Japan.
Sources
- "'Paris Syndrome' strikes Japanese" by Caroline Wyatt, BBC News (December 20th, 2006)
- "'Paris Syndrome' leaves tourists in shock" Reuters (October 23rd, 2006)
- "Say Cheese!" by Lauren Collins, the New Yorker (January 22nd, 2007)
- "The
culture shock that puts victims in hospital" by Charles Bremner, The
Times (December 15th, 2004)