2005© Liudmila Kondakova and Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts
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.
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."
In other words, as they say in French, «N'importe quoi*».
*Translation: «Whaat evar»
1 comment:
What! I absolutely refuse to let you speak ill of samurais! Have you no decency?
When I first read the story, I thought: what nonsense! How can anyone be so weak minded as to go crazy because a place turns out to be different from their expectations, which is what happens all the time to tourists all over the world. And now you're telling me that it could be true. [rolls eyes, shakes head à la Mister Bean]
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