Each summer, a strange evil strikes a small part of Japanese tourists visiting Paris. A sometimes so sharp torment that must be proceeded with medical management, or even the health repatriation of the persons concerned. Baptized Bet Shōkōgun (Paris syndrome), it is an antagonistic form with so -called “Stendhal” syndrome – a disorder that everything informed at least once: visiting Florence, the novelist was one day dizzy in the face of the splendor of the artistic heritage of the Tuscan capital and we qualified this disorder as his name.
Paris syndrome which affects certain Japanese tourists proceeds, conversely, of a shock caused by the negative gap between the representation of a fantasized city and the discovery of its less enviable reality. Unfortunately, cultural and linguistic differences between our country and the Empire of the rising sun are not enough to explain this confusing phenomenon.
The summer leave allowed your servant to explore Japan, as well as his capital. Back, we propose to shed light on the causes of the mysterious evil in question, from four very short stories that are really experienced. In doing so, we will reveal as many suggestions for Paris to become this light city that the world envies so much. Better yet: we are convinced that these are reflections useful for the revitalization of our common heritage within a society that suffers from so many ills.
Both barrels
In the district of Shibuya, a beating heart of the city, was a peaceful shintoic sanctuary named Meiji-Jingū, nestled in Yoyogi Park. At the bend of one of his shaded alleys, the visitor is invited to pass between a wall of barrels of Great Crus of Burgundy and his Danition, made up of traditional sake barrels. The symbolism is clear: it evokes the reforming will of the emperor Meiji who, in the second half of the 19th centurye century, engaged Japan on the path of open modernity.
We must, we French, without reservation, preserve and cherish our historic legacy because it is precious
Today’s Japan inherits this fundamental syncretism between the conservation of a proudly claimed millennial tradition and an opening to the benefits of the West. The metaphor of the two barrels must evoke, for us French, the only alternative to the current cultural slump: we are a country capable of welcoming progress, the richness of the influences of the world, the peoples; But we must, without reservation, preserve and cherish our historic legacy because it is precious.
Sawdust
We were walking in Shinjuku, a lively business district of the Japanese capital. Two site workers worked together, entirely equipped like all their peers. The site was perfectly marked, secure and reported, like all the surrounding sites. The first worker was busy; He kept a wood saw carefully.
We did not immediately complete what the second was doing. By approaching us understanding that he helped him hold the board to secure the cut and that, at the same time, he was holding a cup to prevent sawdust chips from flying in the wind and dirtying the surrounding sidewalks. Anyone who has already visited Paris does not need additional development inUR Enter the extent of the ditch which separates this respectful way of proceeding and the parsimonious relationship to the sanitation of our authorities.
Statistically correct
In our last test (Statistically correct2023), we have dealt with the misuse of statistics in our democracies, where the figure is invoked to envy in public debate, endowed with a higher truth value to the other arguments, despite the fact that its use is most often incorrect and simplistic, reduced to vulgar medium or to frustrating percentages.
In the metro, on the promotional screens of taxis, on Tokyo display panels, it is not uncommon to see advertisements or other communications exhibiting histograms or graphic chronicles of values drawn from scientific studies offered talis qualisthat is to say according to standards of rigor that we would not dare to impose on our university students: extensive quote from sources, indication of the margin of error, correct nomenclature of the variables … We have, of course, also raised countless biases for their uses (the statistic remains complex and ambiguous as for its interpretation), but it is clear that statistical responsibility Japanese is immeasurably more developed than ours.
Middle right
Paris is an open -air project. Many major provincial cities have also become. The reasons for this are disconcerting and multiple. They are both technical in nature – for lack of sufficient maintenance, many installations are dilapidated and deteriorate faster than they should -; POLICY-SUBMAGE LEARS are granted without real requirement vis-à-vis entrepreneurs with regard to deadlines and nuisances; Ideological – the long hold on the ground discourages the use of the car and contributes to the objectives displayed to reduce the place of this means of transport -; Aesthetics-contempt for the value of the beautiful induces the absence of a safeguard in terms of destruction of urban harmony.
In Japan, the work is done at night, when it disturbs the least, minimizing the grip of vehicles, people and materials on the ground. They are carried out with suitable resources so that their execution is the least incident possible on the urban environment. The dirty ribalise does not float in the wind, the reinforced concrete slides do not remain there Ad Vitam Aeternam On each street corner and the hounded metal barriers do not litter the sidewalks. Respect for the citizen is ensured by the minimization of his disturbance.
In Japan, respect for the citizen is ensured by the minimization of his disturbance
We could have delivered other inspiring accounts about the relation to safety, the satisfaction of a job well done, the attachment to courtesy, appeasement in the face of technology, the place of wokism. However, we do not idealize Japan, we account for what seriously malfunctions with us now. We have at least as many Parisian stories to narrate to the Tokyotes wishing to make their city and their country the other more beautiful place in the world.
* Doctor of philosophy and graduate in cognitive sciences of the École normale supérieure, Sami Biasoni is a professor of lecturers at ESSEC, at the Polytechnic Institute of Paris and speaker. In 2022 he directed the collective work Malaise in the French language and published Statistically correct at editions of the deer in September 2023. His next essay, entitled Encyclopedia of contemporary euphemisms, will appear on September 11, 2025 by Cerf editions.
