Paris syndrome • Hacker News Board

Re: Paris syndrome

#81

Post by deogeo » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #65

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French is a race just like Chinese and Nigerian are races. If I were born in Japan I might have Japanese citizenship but I wouldn’t be ethnically Japanese. It’s weird that European ethnicities are the only ones that don’t mean anything. You are saying that French can be anything, which is basically a melting pot. It’s not America where anyone can be American. It’s France with 1000s if years of history and culture.

French, Chinese and Nigerian are nationalities, not races. If you think China is ethnically homogeneous, you're quite wrong. Just look at a linguistic map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/China_li... The government does classify 90% of the population as a single group "Han", but that's partially a political move to discourage local separatism. Despite increased mixture between regions since the in…

> northerners eating more noodles, while southerners eat more rice.

You don't have to look that closely to find diversity in Paris.

Re: Paris syndrome

#82

Post by douglasmurray12 » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

jacobush wrote: post #74

narag wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. So in Japan people inmigrate more uniformly? In Spain is just a matter of opportunities. It's easier to find a job in big cities.

Nah, as far as I know there is no such policy: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00398/the-changing-fac...

12% in the most foreign-populated area still seems very low by European standards. Given that a lot of the foreigners are Chinese and Korean, to the European eye it looks even more homogeneous than that.

Seine-Saint-Denis, for comparison, had 27% residents born outside Metropolitan France, and that was in 1999. Marseille is 25% muslim.

Re: Paris syndrome

#83

Post by baby » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

bsaul wrote: post #7

let’s be honest. Paris center is really great, but all the rest is trash by any standard (not even the japanese one). And i’m not even talking about suburbs, which people coming from the airport must go through. People are absolutely not what you’d expect french to look like ( and i’m not talking about size), public transport are a total trash, working only half the time correctly.. Restrooms makes us look like a thi…

I'm french and indeed I would not recommend someone to go to Paris. There are much nicer cities here (Bordeaux, Montpellier, are some examples.)

Also: send your tourists to San Francisco, we have even lower standards here :D

Re: Paris syndrome

#84

Post by baby » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

julienchastang wrote: post #50

I am part Parisian. (I used to live there and my family is from the city and nice banlieue). I love Paris, but what shocks me every time I go back is the quantity of dog poop (and also trash) in the streets and the inability of city officials to do anything about it. Here are a few tips for visitors: - When interacting with locals, always start off by saying Bonjour Monsieur, Bonjour Madame. That will help disarm cra…

I would also recommend not being too loud, French people usually are pretty quiet in restaurants or public spaces, and being loud is frowned upon.

Re: Paris syndrome

#85

Post by baby » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #76

glennpratt wrote: post #56

We went to Paris in a rainy November, took public transit exclusively and stayed in a building with an elevator that could fit one suitcase, by itself, and a shower about the same size. We saw some homelessness and scams. And yet it was absolutely lovely. I could talk endlessly about the people, the sites, the food (and hardly just French food) and the museums. I'm sort of dumbfounded at people who can't see that. No…

Meh... in every city it depends on the place you visit. San Francisco is horrible due to the extreme amount of homeless, addict and crazy people (I got harassed by one of them in my last visit). Ney York people are assholes (they just shout at you and mock you as tourist when you ask for directions). London was really nice.. but of course I'm talking about Hyde park and surroundings. Liverpool is beautiful, just dont…

yes if you visit San Francisco first, then Paris, then Paris seems lovely.

Re: Paris syndrome

#86

Post by baby » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #59

Not to put too fine a point, but is this the Paris you've encountered?[1] [2] Do you expect others who've visited Paris to come away with quite a different perception, even being in the same places you were in or objectively no? [1] The Streets of Paris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Js8wntdk4 [2] Is My "Paris Streets" Video Fake News? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iw1_Zakbb0

I was watching this video trying to understand what was wrong with it, then I read the description:

> For those who are confused by the point of this video, the point is that France is changing forever due to mass immigration. The people in this video were not speaking French, the women were not wearing their hair in French Braids, they had their head scarves on. When I was driving from the airport I saw people being fed from volunteer aid vans in the Syrian zones and coming up to your cars with signs in Arabic. The posters on the walls and the protesters yelled refugees welcome. Much of what you are looking at is not legal or proper migration and assimilation. France will not be France for long.

what a bunch of bigotry.

Re: Paris syndrome

#87

Post by intrepidhero » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

Hang on. Why is everyone talking about dirty Paris streets and not about the claim that unrealistic expectations can result in literal psychosis? Surely this kind of mind-body connection would suggest further investigation, inform policy on deceptive advertising, etc.

Re: Paris syndrome

#88

Post by achamayou » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #53

quicklime wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an American, but I think that France should be a melting pot because of its colonial history. Many immigrants in Paris who "don't look French" are from former colonies that still speak French to some extent. Keeping Paris white would be denying part of France's history.

The immigrants still have a home country. What you're advocating is French genocide. how about just paying reparations to those countries instead of destroying all the French villages that had nothing to do with the kings colonizing. I see the French Revolution basically as a bankruptcy where they were freed from the debts incurred by the royalty.

[flagged]

Re: Paris syndrome

#89

Post by csomar » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #10

I thought the people in Paris were surprisingly nice. (I speak a bit of French, and in my experience people were very friendly if you at least tried to communicate in French to begin with.) That said, Parisian bathrooms give me nightmares. The only place outside of Bangladesh where I’ve seen squat toilets.

> I thought the people in Paris were surprisingly nice.

I've had extremes. Either very rude, or unreasonably nice and friendly. Paris has 10 million people around, so there must be some very good people. But the average guy you'll hit on the street is probably going to be a mediocre experience.

Re: Paris syndrome

#90

Post by newshorts » Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

Very interesting, I had the opposite effect.

I grew up in a very “red” part of the US and was given a very negative view of the French (or anyone else for that matter). I was so surprised to find the people were friendly, kind and inviting. A small French restaurant even stayed open late because my friend and I had just arrived in Paris and had no idea of where to find food.

The city struck me as beautiful. Everything was so clean and manicured (my town by comparison was dirty, dusty and unkempt).

Paris destroyed my sense of exceptionalism.