Paris Syndrome

Here's a great story. Reuters report that psychologists have identified a condition called Paris Syndrome. Up to a dozen Japanese tourists a year suffer from the disorder, caused by the reality of Paris' scruffy streets and unfriendly locals, contrasting greatly with their romantic image of the city.

"A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses," Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them.

Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying.