Paris syndrome

I've mentioned this to several of my classmates. I thought I would post it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391010/

Apparently many Japanese tourists in Paris go into shock when they realize how different Paris is from what they've imagined. Many people criticize Paris and Parisians for being unfriendly and snooty. I am pretty sure this is because there are too many tourists in Paris. My brother lives near Montmartre and says he feels like he lives in an aquarium every time he steps out of his apartment ("Look! A REAL Parisian!!! Look at his elegant scarf! Take a picture, quick!!!") but apparently Japanese tourists find it particularly shocking, and there are enough incidences of psychological breakdown by Japanese tourists in Paris that it has it's own clinical name, "Paris Syndrome." I can understand, since the whole ちょっと。。。 thing and the many other ways of being polite really run against the grain of French culture. We are brought up to be fairly skeptical of others, ("L'enfer, c'est les autres." Hell is others). We use negaitve politeness (i.e. we do not identify with others; we leave formal distance between "us" and "them"), whereas the Japanese seem to use more inclusive politeness (being very friendly, trying to be of service, asking what the other person wants to do). We are also brought up to be very critical for the most part, whether of the government, our teachers, our friends, our parents, the food at a restaurant, a movie--critical of everyone and everything really. The idea that we should express criticism delicately or indirectly (or even, horror of horrors, keep it to ourselves!) is very very hard for me to handle.

Here is a scene from Proust's famous novel In Search of Lost Time. It is an exaggeration, but it is indicative of an ideal in France. The narrator and the person he is describing (M. de St-Loup) become inseparable friends after this! (This is my trans. sorry I'm not so good at this)

"This insolence that I suspected in M. de Saint-Loup, and all the natural severity that it implied, was verified by his attitude each time he passed by us, body inflexibly pushed forward, head held high with an impassive look (an understatement to say the least), barren of any of that vague respect for the rights of other creatures, even if they know your aunt, and which made it so that one did not act in exactly the same manner with an elderly woman as with a gas lamp [...] one day I met them [Saint-Loup and his aunt] in such a narrow passage that she [his aunt] could not avoid presenting us to one another. He did not seem to notice that she was presenting someone to him; no muscle on his face moved; his eyes, which did not shine with even the weakest warmth of human sympathy, only showed, in their insensitivity, in their futile gaze, an exageration of the defect from which nothing could differenciate them from lifeless mirrors. Then, he focused his hard eyes on me as if he wanted to investigate me before returning my salutation, which he did with a brusque release, seeming more like a muscular reflex than an act of the will, putting the greatest distance possible between he and I, and extending his arm to its fullest length in order to shake my hand. I expected no less than a duel when I received his visiting card the next day. But he only talked to me about literature, and after a long conversation, he declared that he wanted nothing more than to see me each day for several hours."

NOT gonna fly in Japan! But note that, once you pierce the implacable disdain, Saint-Loup becomes very very kind. And not everyone in France is like this! Skip Paris and go to the countryside if you ever go to France! My heartfelt sympathies to any Japanese people who have suffered from this condition... I will try to be friendlier next time I am in Paris visiting family.