John Menick

Paris Syndrome

John Menick

In the fall of 2006, several US and UK newspapers ran stories concerning psychological breakdowns experienced by Japanese citizens traveling in Paris, France. In an average of a dozen cases a year, Japanese travelers would undergo extreme depression and cultural rejection, sometimes culminating in hallucinations and traumatic shock. The most extreme cases were repatriated permanently to Japan. According to these articles, it was Professor Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist living in France, who was the first to identify this condition as "Paris Syndrome." Paris Syndrome is a short, cinematic essay analyzing the cultural implications of travel-related mental illnesses