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Paris syndrome

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Re: Paris syndrome

#161

Post by taken_username »

ip26 wrote: post #104
newshorts wrote: post #90

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. Everythin…

I grew up in a "blue" part, and visiting third world countries opened my eyes to, "maybe there is something we are doing right in the US". (The exaggerated liberal perspective being, we're doing it all wrong & screwing everything up. The exaggerated conservative perspective being, we are perfect and changing anything risks ruining everything)

You may do many things right in the US, except the fact that you still rank the countries into first, second and third!

Re: Paris syndrome

#162

Post by bsaul »

jdietrich wrote: post #154
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

The 18th Arrondissement looks like the 18th Arrondissement. I am not exactly shocked. Paris is rather busy with being Paris; if it doesn't meet your expectations, that's very much your problem.

Except this kind of video could be shot in every suburb in the northern half of Paris.

You may want to say it’s perfectly « normal », because that’s actually what the situation is now indeed. But for every single tourist i know, as well as for every people that has known Paris before the 1980s , it comes as a great surprise.

Re: Paris syndrome

#163

Post by GuB-42 »

baby wrote: post #83
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

I really like Montpellier, but just like with Paris (on a much, much smaller scale of course), the center is really nice, but not so much for the rest of the city.

I think that's the case with most French cities. Nice centers but the surroundings are average at best. An exception would be Marseille, it is filthy even in the center ;).

Re: Paris syndrome

#164

Post by fortran77 »

fortran77 wrote: post #108
core-questions wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please leave your hatred for Israel out of this. Israel is extremely multicultural. All signs are officially in three languages. The population is 20% Arabic, and 60% of the Jews there come from all over the middle east and Africa.

This is a thread about Paris, yet all you rabid haters, who are obsessed with hating Israel, made it about Israel.

@dang -- remove these evil people from Hacker News

Re: Paris syndrome

#165

Post by iron0013 »

bsaul wrote: post #162
jdietrich wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 18th Arrondissement looks like the 18th Arrondissement. I am not exactly shocked. Paris is rather busy with being Paris; if it doesn't meet your expectations, that's very much your problem.

Except this kind of video could be shot in every suburb in the northern half of Paris. You may want to say it’s perfectly « normal », because that’s actually what the situation is now indeed. But for every single tourist i know, as well as for every people that has known Paris before the 1980s , it comes as a great surprise.

Could you tell me what you think the “surprise” is, exactly? I don’t quite get it, I need you to explicitly say what you mean.

Re: Paris syndrome

#166

Post by iron0013 »

douglasmurray12 wrote: post #66
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

Not all of Paris is like that. Those that can afford to tend to move out from such areas, resulting in a fairly segregated city. The politicians responsible tend to not live in such areas either.

Not all of Paris is like what?

Re: Paris syndrome

#167

Post by douglasmurray12 »

iron0013 wrote: post #166
douglasmurray12 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all of Paris is like that. Those that can afford to tend to move out from such areas, resulting in a fairly segregated city. The politicians responsible tend to not live in such areas either.

Not all of Paris is like what?

Has a very large proportion of people that immigrated into France within 1-2 generations from outside Europe, mostly North Africa.

Re: Paris syndrome

#168

Post by dang »

intrepidhero wrote: post #87

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.

Humans like to talk, so if we don't have anything to say about one topic, we'll change it to what we do have something to say about. All we need is a path of associations from A to B. The way to get there is first to switch to a generic superset of the topic (Paris Syndrome -> Paris), i.e. go to Central Station, and from there hop on a train to something you have opinions/feelings about (Paris -> Dirty streets in Paris). In this case the path was also plausible because the OP references tourism. But at least the comments here are talking from personal experience, rather than going into generic ideology, which is worse (and did flare up in a spot or two).

Hopping to more generic subjects makes threads less interesting, because the larger a topic is, the fewer unpredictable things there are to say about it. Even if one comment manages to say something unpredictable, the replies quickly revert to predictable things. The most-commonly-repeated arguments have accrued so much mass that no discussion can resist their pull. Therefore, one rule that has developed on HN over the years is to resist generic tangents: they are antithetical to curiosity. Curiosity likes to look around and see something new and specific; generic tangents are powered by emotional energy that wants to talk about something old and familiar.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Edit: This is a medium-is-the-message thing. A large, flat, open forum like HN can't discuss generic topics well, because of the mass effect I mentioned above. For such discussions to be interesting requires longer (for depth) and more individual (to stay on track) genres. An essay at least, if not a book.

Re: Paris syndrome

#169

Post by bsaul »

iron0013 wrote: post #165
bsaul wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this kind of video could be shot in every suburb in the northern half of Paris. You may want to say it’s perfectly « normal », because that’s actually what the situation is now indeed. But for every single tourist i know, as well as for every people that has known Paris before the 1980s , it comes as a great surprise.

Could you tell me what you think the “surprise” is, exactly? I don’t quite get it, I need you to explicitly say what you mean.

i’m afraid you’ll have to ask your asian friends visiting the country for the first time after they took the RER from the airport to Paris (but you’ll have to make them feel like they won’t get sued for giving their impression, first)

Re: Paris syndrome

#170

Post by baby »

GuB-42 wrote: post #163
baby wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I really like Montpellier, but just like with Paris (on a much, much smaller scale of course), the center is really nice, but not so much for the rest of the city. I think that's the case with most French cities. Nice centers but the surroundings are average at best. An exception would be Marseille, it is filthy even in the center ;).

Yeah that's pretty much the design of French cities (and maybe European cities to an extent). The center is great, around the center is meh, suburbs are to be avoided. Very different from the typical American city.
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