Japanese Suffer Paris Syndrome

Up to two dozen Japanese tourists a year, mainly women in their 30s are sending home from the French capital, Paris, after turning out to be a victim to what has become known as the 'Paris Syndrome'.

While the Japanese tourists find out the shocking disparity among the popular image of Paris, city of accordions, light, romance, flowers and cobbled streets, differently to the reality of the popular tourist destination, immediately they require psychiatric assistance.

Following repeatedly contact with impatient waiters, or rude taxi drivers who scream at customers who can’t talk fluent French, the person requires immediate hospitalization in those cases. The Japanese embassy holds a 24 hour hotline for those distressing from this extreme form of 'culture shock'.

For the Japanese tourist, the experience of their 'dream city' turns into a nightmare because they used to a more polite and helpful society, in which voices are hardly ever raised in anger.

Despite of this syndrome affects Japanese more than any other nationality, as they have been advertising images of an idealized Paris and bombarded with film.

Roughly a million Japanese tourists go to France each year.
Wandering in the Judean desert wrapped in hotel bed sheets, or crouched at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, victims have been found waiting to birth the infant Jesus. A comparable mental affliction has an effect on tourist to the holy city of Jerusalem.

Kfar Shaul Dr. from the Hospital in Jerusalem, Yair Bar-El says: "There are three categories of tourists who get Jerusalem syndrome. The first groups are clearly mentally ill people who arrive with psychotic ideas. The second and biggest group is the pilgrims who arrive with deep religious convictions."

The following group is compose of people who usually belong to bizarre fringe church groups and believe they must do specific things to bring about the major events such as the return of the Messiah, the war of Armageddon, or the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"They don't see strange things, they don't hear voices, they remember everything and all the time they know they're John Smith or Yan Huber. They don't think they're another person and this reaction usually passes completely in five to seven days". "The third groups are usually without any psychiatric history or taking drugs" says Bar-El.

Those afflicted in this way often undertake a series of purification rituals, like shaving their body hair, washing over and over and putting on white clothes, which are frequently hotel sheets. The person sometimes begins to cry, or sing Biblical songs in a very loud voice. They visit the holy places and often deliver a sermon, demanding humanity become, calmer, purer and less materialistic.

Everyone involved in tourism in Israel takes the Jerusalem Syndrome very seriously and is on the constant look out for afflicted visitors. On average 3 – 4 tourists a year are afflicted, though up to 50 were witnessed in 1999, possibly because of the millennial activities.

John the Baptist is the most popular syndrome choice for Christian men, while the Virgin Mary is the most popular among Christian women.