Paris syndrome (French: Syndrome de Paris, Japanese: ?????, Pari sh?k?gun) is a transient mental disorder exhibited by some individuals when visiting or vacationing to Paris, as a result of extreme shock derived from their discovery that Paris is not what they had expected it to be. The syndrome is characterized by a number of psychiatric symptoms such as acute delusional states, hallucinations, feelings of persecution (perceptions of being a victim of prejudice, aggression, or hostility from others), derealization, depersonalization, anxiety, and also psychosomatic manifestations such as dizziness, tachycardia, sweating, and others, such as vomiting. Similar syndromes include Jerusalem syndrome and Stendhal syndrome. The condition is commonly viewed as a severe form of culture shock. It is particularly noted among Japanese travelers.
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History
Professor Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist working in France, is credited as the first person to diagnose the condition in 1986. However, later work by Youcef Mahmoudia, physician with the hospital Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, indicates that Paris syndrome is "a manifestation of psychopathology related to the voyage, rather than a syndrome of the traveller." He theorized that the excitement resulting from visiting Paris causes the heart to accelerate, causing giddiness and shortness of breath, which results in hallucinations in the manner similar to the Stendhal syndrome described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini in her book La sindrome di Stendhal.
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Susceptibility
Japanese visitors are observed to be especially susceptible. It was first noted in Nervure, the French journal of psychiatry in 2004. From the estimated six million yearly visitors, the number of reported cases is not large: according to an administrator at the Japanese embassy in France, around 20 Japanese tourists a year are affected by the syndrome.
Mario Renoux, the president of the Franco-Japanese Medical Association, states in Libération': "Des Japonais entre mal du pays et mal de Paris" ("The Japanese are caught between homesickness and Paris sickness", 13 December 2004) and that Japanese magazines are primarily responsible for creating this syndrome. Renoux indicates that Japanese media, magazines in particular, often depict Paris as a place where most people on the street look like "stick-thin" models and most women dress in high fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton
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