Thursday, December 21, 2006
Can't take... reality...
'Paris Syndrome' Strikes Japanese - Hmm... this is some kind of a joke, right???
Paris Syndrome = what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations. The experience can apparently be too stressful for some and they suffer a psychiatric breakdown. (BBC News, December 20, 2006)
On the other hand, Paris is romanticized to death in Japanese melo-dramas, books, and adverts. It's not a too far-fetched idea for such a psychological disease to be created.
In my actual experience with Japanese tourists in Paris, all the old women (in their 60's) were speed-marching down the streets like they owned it. A young honeymoon couple were complaining that their skins were breaking out, perhaps because of the water in the hotel. From one extreme of obnoxiousness to the other of utter fragility, Japanese tourists can be quite tricky to assess.
// posted by sakit @ 11:39 AM 
