<<So this sort of caught my eye. Thought I would pass it along. We denizens of the shadows have seen their type before. Corp drones that are wide-eyed and scared when confronted with reality of life outside their arcologies. (~_^)
<< WL


"Paris Syndrome"


<<"PARIS (Reuters) - 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 travellers 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."

...then there was the time I was strolling down the beach in Wakiki for the first time and a Japanese man, not saying anything in English except "Picture" handed me a very expensive Minolta (pre Digital days). I turned to my buddy and said, "wow, this is really a friendly place, not only do they give you flowers and have a beautiful woman kiss you on the cheek when you land, but people walk up to you and give really nice cameras too."

Of course, I knew he obviously wanted me to take his and his family's picture which I of did and handed him the camera back. But the thought was there.

--a true story.

Bienvenu à la réalité!

Somehow though, I can't imagine corp drones suffering from that when they leave the arcology. I would think Renraku trid stations, or whatever, would portray the outside world (and life at other corps) as a dangerous nightmare.

I mean it is, but I don't see why they'd lead people to think any differently.

That can of course lead to some fun when a wageslave out it the hellish world, runs into someone actually altruistic and helpful (they might be rare in SR but do exist). Paris Syndrome due to people being nicer than expected... well i like the idea.

They might be overstating the case a little bit. About a dozen Japanese visitors represents what percentage of total Japanese visitors to Paris? Would that number reflect the number of people with undiagnosed schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder? It might. And travel, especially to a radically different culture would easily be the triggering stressor.

What I'm saying is that maybe it's more likely that visiting Paris was triggering the symptoms of an already present mental health issue than creating one.

Hmm... like RPG's, isn't it? The small number of young people who showed schizophrenic-like symptoms after playing a certain RPG is actually reflective of the number of young people showing similar symptoms if taken from the general population.

To put it another way, just 'cause two things happened at around the same time, doesn't mean one caused the other.

Funny story, though.

Personally, I think that article is a load of crap. For some reason there's a weird negative sterotype about Parisians, but every time I've been to Paris I've gotten along wonderfully with the people whom I've interacted with. Maybe it's because I actually spoke French to them instead of expecting them to magically understand English (or Japanese).

I also disagree that in Japan the consumer is king. Sure, the retail workers bow and scrape, but the prices suck. It's kind of like having an overweight Mexican woman in tight leather call you "my lord" while she grinds your face against the floor and inserts increasing numbers of frozen baby carrots into your rectum.

*shudder*

Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, would perhaps be more correct.

All I know is that I have this rock and I've never been attacked by a tiger for as long as I have had it. It must be a magic rock that repels tigers.

hmmm.... I'd like to buy your rock.

Yeah, I pretty much stop any conversation, debate, or whatever when the either I or the other person starts a phrase with "All I know is..."

Fortune... am I talking to the Sun King right now?

I've been to Boston a number of times. Funnily enough, it was one of my favorite (and one of the friendlier) cities in the States.

So, in short, you have failed miserably.

Well I tend to think Parisian do get a harder rap than maybe they deserve.

But my primary interest in the article was the part dealing with how people's perceptions can clash with reality in such a huge way. Because of propaganga and the fantasy they have built in their own minds, among other reasons.

I like to think I have an idea of what is really going on in the world but I bet I dont really know anything all unless I see it myself.

Plus I figured that the cases of Paris Syndrome were probably sensationalized for the article. But it did paint an interested picture of what could happen to a person that had been sheltered from the "real" world. (I remember after 9-11 hearing people shockingly come to realize that a lot of people do not like the United States. Many still dont even believe or realize how many bad and untimately self-harming things the U.S. has done over the years.)

That article is truely bizarre. Are we sure it's not actually a weekly world news story or something, because it sure reads like one. Out of all the Japanese tourists who grow abroad a year, 12 is a small enough number that's it's quite possible all of them are simply idiots. I bet each year you could find 12 Westerners of some stripe who go to Japan with big ideas that are going to make them manga superstars, but can't speak a word of Japanese, didn't get around to booking a hotel, and whose entire plan is:
Step 1: Go to Japan
Step 2: ???
Step 3: ???
Step 4: ???
STep 5: Profits!

From my experience, the Parisians have a different sense of life, style and politesse, than the rest of France. A similar pattern exists if you compare NYC and LA to Rochester and San Diego.

While I prefer the provincial lifestyle in France to the hustle and bustle in Paris, I don't think that having my view of the French crushed would drive me deep into psychoses.

Well, I can imagine some mentally unstable persons thinking Paris is the cat's ass, like depicted in movies etc, and go over the edge when they discover most parts of paris are more like a cat's dump.

Still, I am even more convinced of the correlation is not causation thing.

I guess more people are going crazy in Vegas.

FWIW, I'm fond of Paris. Not sure I'd want to live there, but I haven't had any problems when I've been there.

Well, aside from the fact that no one picked up after their dogs at that point. I hope that's changed.

~J

I hate to stereotype, but I've met one genuine Parisienne, and she ain't helping the rep of her type at all.

This thread makes me laugh.

I grew up outside NYC in the 70-80's and the Parisians still stand out as spectacularly rude people. There was a large population of them in my area, mainly diplomat types.

As just a couple of examples
Riding my bike down a street, a french woman in a jeep was talking to a friend and rolled through a stop sign and into me. Lucky it was a jeep or I might have been crushed. I got up asked her what the F she thought I was doing?
She told me very calmly that I should be quiet because I might wake up her baby who was sleeping in the back of the car.

I ripped open the car door and told her in english and french exactly where, considering she had just hit me with her car, her baby's nap time figured in the grand scheme of things.

A few years later, walking home from a train station a car rolled through a 4 way stop sign, making a left turn, with pedestrians in the crosswalk. I noticed this because I had to jump out of the way. Luckily a police car was waiting for the light and went after the car, bells and whistles going. I walked past the car where the cop had pulled it over. there were 5 kids crawling around the car, not belted in. From what I could pick up the driver was saying she was in a hurry and gestured to her diplomatic plates. The officer couldn't even ticket her. BUT since she was a forigner the officer could, and did, give her a safety lecture about american road laws. I started browsing sotres just to see what would happen. The cop kept tlaking at her for at least 20 minutes. She made sure where ever the frenchwoman was in a hurry for, she'd be late.

When in college I worked summers as a clerk in the public library. There was a whole section of french books. One day a very tall gentleman comes in and, looking odwn his nose at me (I'm 5' 1") in french asks "Can you understand me?"
I responded, in french, "yes sir, a little."
Apparently he didn't like my accent because he then said, in french, "no, like that, from you, the answer is 'nothing.'" I was one of only two people on the staff who could speak nay level of french and he's coping an atittude. He proceeded to ask, in french, for a particular book. I knew just what he wanted and where it was but he had insisted I couldn't speak french so I just smiled politley, and gave him a vacuous stare until he asked again in very broken english. And I made a point of telling him in very quick english, right where it was. Too quick for him to follow.

My parents had little to do wityh the frnech community there who considered themselves too good to 'mingle' and my parents' friends who visited seemed charming and also expressed a contempous view of the Pariseans.

I've spent three holidays in France, and have met a lot of friendly french. But I have to admit that I don't speak french, so I probably only talked to people who bothered to actually learn a different language, and are therefore not representatives for the stereotypical french .

The last time we only stopped in Paris because the train went there, and we had to take the metro to go to another train station. We actually met two parisians who were very helpful and friendly, alltough we could't understand each other.

'Pouvez pas parler français !?

Dunno... My experience with the French is quite irrelevant indeed. I perceived the people I met in the US, Sicily and Greece as friendlier than French are, for instance. But the Londonians did not leave me such a good impression.

Parisians do have a quite bad reputation in the rest of France. Driving in the capital is considered a particularly harmful experience for any outsider (See Snow Fox stories above ? There were one French driver involved each time...). I guess people commuting in and out Paris have reasons not to be in a pleasant mood. On the other hand, politeness is sure not a prerequisite for shopkeeper in the capital...

It's funny because I have the same feeling about people from Montreal... (sorry to all the dumpshockers from Mtl...). I don't feel like they are actually rude but more like they think they're from the (cultural) centre of the world (again, I'm generalizing a lot, I'm sure you're all nice!). But again, my gf told me it was like that in LA (she spent last year there). Oh, and I'm from Quebec City and I also feel like everyone there is kinda rude and snobbish. It MIGHT be related to them being French but reading everyone's past experience, it might be related to all big cities (Paris, London, Montreal, etc.), especially the ones with a lot of history/influence on the cultural or economical scene.

Trying to bring the subject back to Shadowrun, I do feel like people from Seattle would be at a certain degree like that, considering the importance of the city. I even think I read somewhere a (very) short thing about Seattle wanting to become independant and separate itself from the UCAS, sometimes a sign of "we are better than everyone else". Maybe people from Denver would have the same attitude (being the Treaty City and all) as would have Atlanta citizens. What do you think?

Again, I give all my love to all the nice dumpshockers from Montreal, even if the Canadiens suck...

Nordiques forever!

Peace!

Crossfire

On the "this city has rude people" thing, this past summer I was in, at various times and for various amounts of time,

- Castaic, LA, Big Sur area, and Monterey, CA
- Newport and Portland, OR
- Seattle, WA
- Vancouver, BC, and then a few stops in other towns in CA, we were pretty much just driving Canada for the scenery although we intend to go back sometime
- some small town, MD
- Washington D.C.
- NYC, NY
- Colonial Williamsburg and some other town in VA

and all I could think the whole trip was "that whole thing about people in X city being rude is bullshit". People were generally great literally everywhere we went. In fact, the only point on the trip that I didn't really care for the general attitude of the people was Virginia. Too "old country plantation we're better than you" for my tastes, but we still didn't have any particularly bad experiences with anyone.

As a French who's just settled in Paris, coming from the south, I have to agree with some things here but I'm just amazed at how "Parisian" stereotypes can be applied to a whole people by some folks.

Yeah, on average I guess Parisians are a bit ruder, poshier and stuck-up-their-own-ass.
I must say there definitely are two countries in France - Paris and the rest. The fact that Parisians have a word for everything in France that *is not* Paris ("La province", that roughly means in that sense "the countryside") is good enough.

But really, after spending a year in Tel Aviv, I can definitely assure you the Parisians (or French for that matter) are far from being the rudest.

I'm just as perplex as anyone else when I try to understand why the French suck at speaking English. And I mean English, because many speak Spanish, Italian, even German pretty well (even though younger generations speak English better).

I can see a couple of reasons. The first is all big Western European countries seem to be in the same situation. Italians and Spaniards suck just as much as we do, except people probably meet them less. As for German, its closer to English.
I guess people in smaller countries tend to travel more for obvious reasons, making learning English something natural.

That's one thing. My girlfriend, who's Israeli and American - ie high potential French-hating background, told me the other day she thinks she understand why we suck.

She's been living with me in Paris for a while and is surprised at how the Parisians and the French are no worse than other people, and are certainly no dirty racist antisemites. As for the language thing, she tells me she came to realize that speaking in public was highly valued, that speaking well was a key issue in France.
And while other people around the globe can speak their own, broken version of English shamelessly as long as they can communicate, the French are too self conscious for that and are afraid to sound stupid.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting take. What I can nix right away is that dumb idea that the French *don't want* to speak English because they regret the old times when the world was speaking French. I'm the first one bashing my country when it deserves it, but please, we live in the 21st century too.

Thought it was because of their long feud with the island-hoppers at England?

Well, that's another cliché I'm really amazed to hear all the time.

Honestly, I see the bashing being an English thing directed at the French, rather than the other way around (from news articles to literature).

I don't really know a single French person who's got any problem with the Brits *because* they're Brits. Okay common criticism of Britain here is about the UK following the US anywhere even in the worse of their foreign policy choices (not trying to ignite a debate here, mind you), or joking about British food and weather.

If there's a country France likes to hate, that's certainly the US (because in so many ways we're too similar I guess), but even there criticism is mostly directed at the politics rather than the people.

All in all, I don't believe for a second in that rivalry with the Brits thing. There's certainly some in foreign / European policy, but on the language / personal level? Not for a second.

France has the fourth or fifth economy, about on par with the UK, and we wouldn't be there if the country was as retarded and introvert as many think.

Hrm... My only experiences in Paris were pretty nice. As a well-traveled non-French speaker, I didn't have any difficulties excepting transportation. When I was lost, I found most people spoke enough English to be helpful, or knew someone who did. Then again, I was in Paris enjoying the city and was happy to tell anyone how much I was enjoying it.

My problems were:
1) Parisian drivers are nuckin' futs
2) I got harassed by some street punks while waiting for the train, but they didn't seem interested in doing more than intimidating me, so it ended okay.