Live data from Hacker News

Paris syndrome

en.wikipedia.org

61–70 of 176 posts

Re: Paris syndrome

#61

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…

Seconded about Tour Montparnasse. The Tour Eiffel has become an expensive, crowded, dangerous nightmare. You have to go through airport-level security just to approach it, and going up requires previous reservations or waiting in very long lines. Tour Montparnasse is as pleasant as Tour Eiffel was 20 years ago. Tip: Go just before sunset and stay at the top as the sun goes down. Paris is loveliest during the sunset transition.

Re: Paris syndrome

#62
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…

Completely agree. I've been to both Paris and Tokyo in the past year. In Paris we took extreme precautions with our belongings and we still got pickpocket attempts on the subway (fortunately none successful). In Tokyo of course we just took zero precautions because crime against tourists is virtually unheard-of (with the possible exception of Roppongi after dark, where the level of caution you need is still 1/10 that of any neighborhood of Paris.) I'm very sad about how stressed I felt on my last trip to Paris and how unfriendly it seems now. I'll probably never go back.

Re: Paris syndrome

#63

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

That's close to my experiences in some areas, and it's really nice? Wonderful and diverse food, folks walking around, it's really nice.

Re: Paris syndrome

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>if you're Japanese or Israeli or hail from any number of other single-ethnicity states, you're totally A-OK to advocate for all of the same things the French want in their nation, without any accusations at all. I love how often I see this statement, then I realize it doesn't apply to me. Absolutely the same standards I hold for my own country, the French, etc. I hold for the Isrealis and the Japanese. Why should ra…

It is not racism or xenophobia to want to preserve what is good about a nation's culture, and limit the import of other nations' and culture's problems.

Could you please answer the following questions:

1. Is there a limit at which you believe mass migration into France would be undesirable?

2. If you believe that there is such a limit; what would a legitimate movement to argue for limiting mass migration look like, such that you would not be accusing them of xenophobia and racism? How would their arguments differ from core-questions'?

Re: Paris syndrome

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely odd that you assume it's Americans who would be the only ones to call out a racist dogwhistle, when some of the most "progressive" countries in the world are in Europe. I'm skeptical of the idea that a French person is necessarily white - nationality, race, ethnicity and citizenship can (and many times are) not all the same, yet "French" can refer to any one or more of them.

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 introduction of faster transportation, cultural differences are still visible, such as northerners eating more noodles, while southerners eat more rice.

Re: Paris syndrome

#66

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.

Re: Paris syndrome

#67

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

What's wrong with this video? For context, I've lived in Paris for 28 years (left 2 years ago), and I just love the haussmannien architecture. Even in this video, you can see quite a few buildings like that, each more extremely elegant than the next. Is this video supposed to be a negative take on Paris? I didn't get why he showed the ongoing manifestation at the end.

EDIT: OK I read the description of the video, what a disgusting human being. He's making the point that no "French" (for the person in question, that apparently means "white") people is left in Paris.

Re: Paris syndrome

#68
post #25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 20 per cent of people living in the city of Paris are immigrants and 41.3 per cent of people under 20 have at least one immigrant parent. Wow - that's a very fast demographic change.

Capitals tend to attrack most inmigration. As an anecdote, my son's primary class in Madrid had more than a third of inmigrant parents, including Russia, Iran, South America (most) and Morocco. The question, at least for me, is not where you come from, but how well can you integrate. Latins have it easier because we share the language.

Not all capitals - it is a question of policy. Tokyo, for instance, seems to be very different.

Re: Paris syndrome

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody forced the French to colonize a significant portion of the world, by the way.

But what Paris has become is not somehow a direct consequence of colonialism. Those were two separate decisions, and should be criticized and judged separately.

All those people of Algerian descent surely aren't there by chance.

Re: Paris syndrome

#70

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 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."

Is the amount of dog poop in Paris even worse than in Berlin? I cannot imagine that.

Post reply on HN