Paris syndrome
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
- 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.
Is the amount of dog poop in Paris even worse than in Berlin? I cannot imagine that.
It was a great atmosphere, but I was glad when the waiter asked us to swap tables to the other room — he rearranged all the noisy people into one room, and the quiet ones into the other.
Sounds like you might need to try some restaurants in the US. It's more than McDonald's and TGI Fridays.
It's not just French people. American tourists have a reputation in many countries for being annoyingly loud.
The teacher sometimes asked the children were to "use their one metre voice".
A story about Guy de Maupassant always makes me smile. He hated the Eiffel Tower (“I left Paris and even France because in the end, the Eiffel Tower annoyed me too much”) and yet supposedly ate lunch there every day. Why? Because it’s the only place in Paris where you can’t see the Eiffel Tower.
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/20/priority-french-wr...
- Touring the Statue of Liberty is a great experience, but if you just want to see it, then the Staten Island Ferry has a great view of it, and it's free to and from Staten Island
- The view from the Empire State Building is amazing, but if you instead go to the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, then you get to see the Empire State Building and Chrysler Buildings, and in general get a better experience.
You should checkout San Francisco, it's not only dog poop here though ;)
In all seriousness, I'm Married to a French woman, lived in France for a little while. Paris is my favorite city, followed by Tokyo probably
PS: Last time I visited the Eiffel Tower I was 4 years old.
It is so iconic that I think folks should do it.
Also, highly recommend waking up at dawn and visiting Trocadero. The views of the Eiffel Tower are just ridiculous amazing: https://www.danaberez.com/paris-instagram-spots/
Our family (8, 5, 5, myself and wife) had a very good time last summer as Paris tourists (with day trip to Versailles — grounds better than palace tour).
Paris also has Uber, so traveling around isn’t difficult even if you don’t speak French.
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.
But yeah this only justifies a wikipedia article because we have memed it because it is funny.
Hopping to more generic subjects makes threads less interesting, because the larger a topic is, the fewer unpredictable things there are to say about it. Even if one comment manages to say something unpredictable, the replies quickly revert to predictable things. The most-commonly-repeated arguments have accrued so much mass that no discussion can resist their pull. Therefore, one rule that has developed on HN over the years is to resist generic tangents: they are antithetical to curiosity. Curiosity likes to look around and see something new and specific; generic tangents are powered by emotional energy that wants to talk about something old and familiar.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Edit: This is a medium-is-the-message thing. A large, flat, open forum like HN can't discuss generic topics well, because of the mass effect I mentioned above. For such discussions to be interesting requires longer (for depth) and more individual (to stay on track) genres. An essay at least, if not a book.
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/
Oregon even uses Japanese style animation in ads, presumably because of that.
Mexico city is freaking ugly 90%. And insecure, but if you go to the centre or Santa Fe , you will have a nice experience...
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.
(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)
As far as your good experience with a restaurant, those experiences certainly happen, but try going into a bank five minutes before lunch. Or try to enter a grocery store 10 minutes before closing.. or even many restaurants; your experience was a pleasant exception, but let’s be careful not to judge a city based on a single happy experience — I would be willing to bet in your “red” area of the United States, visitors could argue similar instances of unexpected kindnesses. Humanity is generally good, but we always see the grass as being greener.. Also comparing a world class tourist city to your town is a bit unfair, plenty of blight all over France. Travel 30 minutes north of Paris and it looks like a third world country in many places. But on the French: they can be kind and inviting, no question, but for a real treat, travel to the south of France.
Zürich on the other hand is very clean, very orderly, very manicured. Vienna as well.
Beverly Hills isn't a "city". NYC isn't spectacular?
> Paris is a big step up.
I didn't feel it was a big step up from NYC - especially given the hype that paris has.
Why make it political? What does "red" have to do with it. American exceptionalism is an national traditional. Do you think all the movies and tv shows making fun of the french came from a very "red" part of the US? Last I check NY and LA weren't very "red".
> The city struck me as beautiful. Everything was so clean and manicured (my town by comparison was dirty, dusty and unkempt).
Are you sure it was paris and not another european city you were in? Parts of Paris is beautiful for sure, but I've never heard anyone describe it as "so clean and manicured". At least those aren't the words I'd use to describe Paris having visited it.
> (my town by comparison was dirty, dusty and unkempt). Paris destroyed my sense of exceptionalism.
If you were from a small town in a very "red" part of the US, any medium sized city anywhere would have cured you of your sense of exceptionalism.
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)
Here is a study that confirms this: 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?
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.
I've had extremes. Either very rude, or unreasonably nice and friendly. Paris has 10 million people around, so there must be some very good people. But the average guy you'll hit on the street is probably going to be a mediocre experience.
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.
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.
Also: send your tourists to San Francisco, we have even lower standards here :D
I think that's the case with most French cities. Nice centers but the surroundings are average at best. An exception would be Marseille, it is filthy even in the center ;).
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.
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.
> The reality can come as a shock.
> An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures.
> But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger - the experience of their dream city turning into a nightmare can simply be too much.
Wow - that's a very fast demographic change.
The question, at least for me, is not where you come from, but how well can you integrate. Latins have it easier because we share the language.
In Spain is just a matter of opportunities. It's easier to find a job in big cities.
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00398/the-changing-fac...
Seine-Saint-Denis, for comparison, had 27% residents born outside Metropolitan France, and that was in 1999. Marseille is 25% muslim.
- "Not all capitals - it is a question of policy."
- "Interesting. So in Japan people inmigrate [sic] more uniformly?"
... then you don't answer but proceed to compare capitals of the world to each other. I thought we were comparing countryside immigration to capitals vs to the rest of the country. Not between countries.
My counterpoint was that there is nothing inevitable about it, and that it is a policy choice. Tokyo is a very large, very modern city with a massive economy, yet it has a very modest foreign population and is recognizably Japanese almost everywhere you go (which results in being really safe even at night, almost completely litter-free, and certainly a great experience of Japan for a visiting tourist).
The difference you meant was between Spain and Japan. Only 14 km of sea separate our mainland from Africa, with little boats full of desperate people crossing every day. Also we have two towns in continental Africa with land borders with Morocco where border barriers are sometimes just rammed.
But that's just the most dramatic side of it. Most immigrants simply cross the borders as tourists and stay for work. I guess Japan is a little different.
FWIW, Madrid is very safe at night. Only a few neighborhoods, far from downtown, are dangerous.
Edit: immigrant, note taken. Inmigrante in Spanish.
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
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.
https://cdn.civitatis.com/francia/paris/entradas-moulin-roug...
But instead I saw something like this:
https://dimg02.c-ctrip.com/images/100k1900000162nrc547D_Z_64...
(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.
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!
If you want to see a beautiful imperial and romantic type of city go to Vienna.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110719120910/http://www.aphp.f...
"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."