Paris syndrome

C'est beau!

It's not everyday that my love of things Asian and my amazement for things absurd can be painted together in less than broad strokes. But they appeared side by side in finely kerned newsprint recently—a Reuters news story so fantastic I doubt I could have imagined it.

It seems that doctors, ever in search of new conditions to justify their expertise, have coined a new syndrome. Wait for it, visiting Paris can make you ill!

To it's fans, Paris is a haven of creativity and culture, the birthplace of artistic and intellectual movements such as the theatre of the absurd, deconstruction philosophy and the cinema of poetic realism. Points of evidence for it's detractors as well by the way...

It is said that one man's heaven is another man's hell, and for an increasing number of Japanese tourists, the trip of a lifetime to the French capital has become akin to a living Dantean nightmare.

"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."

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