The nation of Japan, while a beautiful locale full of terrific people and wonders both natural and man-made, has established a solid reputation of oddness in recent years. The psychology field presents a shining example of this peculiarity in the form of a mental condition known as Paris syndrome. Prevalent in thirty-something Japanese women and affecting roughly a dozen people yearly, this transient disorder results from a tourist arriving in Paris and finding that her experience not only fails to live up to expectations, but falls so spectacularly wide of the tourist’s idealized vision that her psyche is temporarily crushed at the realization. Symptoms include severe depression, delusions and paranoia, with one male victim believing he was Louis XIV and two female victims thinking their hotel room was bugged and they were targets of a covert plot.
The presence of Paris syndrome originates in the way Parisian culture is displayed in the media versus its reality, and the way this conflict affects people raised in a certain mindset. Throughout modern worldwide media, with the movie Amelie being a prime example, a distorted picture of the city is presented to impressionable people. Paris is saddled in the media with an image of glamour mixed with warmth, impossibly clean streets and storefronts, and a cultural experience that promises elegance and enlightenment.
Reality casts a harsher perspective on the City of Lights, and it shows that the negative stereotypes have a decent basis in reality. Rude service at restaurants and hotels, dirty streets with animal leavings, purse snatchings and a growing homeless problem all clash with the unrealistic preconceptions of some Japanese tourists. They are in a unique position to suffer the most from dashed expectations due to their upbringing. Many Japanese families still raise their children to be uniquely humble and mild-mannered, also leaving them uniquely ill-suited to the true Parisian culture. Their media-fueled idea of Paris is one of inviting sophistication, and they are unequipped to deal with the possibility of neither being welcomed or experiencing a positive cultural enlightenment.
As Japanese families hold proudly to their culture, the strange issue of Paris syndrome isn’t likely to go away any time soon. Cases will continue to emerge unless the romanticized notion of the city is downplayed consistently and repeatedly, and in a world with enough depressing happenings, the cartoon-like perfection of fictional Paris will likely remain predominant in the public’s consciousness.
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