Destination: Japan
‘Paris Syndrome’: The New York City Strain?
by Michael Yessis | 01.23.07 | 1:00 PM ET
The New York Post had some fun with a recent story about Japanese tourists in France who succumb to Paris Syndrome. The paper titled its piece Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried. Now the New Yorker’s Lauren Collins is on the case, wondering if there’s a New York City version of the syndrome that leaves travelers to the City of Light overwhelmed and in need of psychological treatment. An officer at the Japanese Consulate “does not believe in the existence of Paris syndrome, or, for that matter, a New York strain,” Collins writes, but she does report that Japanese visitors to the Big Apple do have certain traits.
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Yahoo! BuzzHonoring ‘Babel’
by Jim Benning | 01.16.07 | 9:41 PM ET
I’ve done a bit of complaining about some travel-related films recently, but I have no qualms with Babel. In fact, I was happy to see it win the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie last night. While it doesn’t depict world travel in the most favorable light—among other calamities in the film, Cate Blanchett’s character is shot during a trip to Morocco—it does movingly show how interconnected the world is becoming, and how that doesn’t necessarily make communication across borders (or even within families) any easier. Filmed in rural Morocco, Tokyo and Tijuana, it’s the kind of movie that somehow simultaneously shrinks the world and expands it. It’s ambitious, with a global perspective, and how many movies can you say that about?
R.I.P. Momofuku Ando, Inventor of Instant Ramen Noodles
by Jim Benning | 01.09.07 | 1:31 PM ET
Oh instant ramen, how we love thee. You feed 100 million people a day, by some estimates. You have served as a worthy and affordable introduction to Japanese food for countless people around the globe. In much of Asia, you are standard dining fare on trains. And now, we learn you were invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958. Sadly, we learn, too, of Ando’s death at the age of 96 near Osaka, Japan. But we agree with everything Lawrence Downes writes in an eloquent tribute in today’s New York Times: “Ramen noodles have earned Mr. Ando an eternal place in the pantheon of human progress. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him ramen noodles, and you don’t have to teach him anything.” Too true.
Related on World Hum:
* Chinese Noodles Predate Marco Polo
Photo: jayceho, via Flickr. (Creative Commons License.)
New Rallying Cry in Boston: The Japanese Are Coming!
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.07 | 8:18 AM ET
Los Angeles leveraged former Dodgers’ pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii‘s popularity to help lure Japanese tourists to town. Seattle and New York rely on the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki and the Yankees’ Hideki Matsui respectively for the same thing. And now Boston is looking to cash in on the latest Japanese baseball superstar to come play in the U.S., Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. William MacDougall, CEO of Tourism Massachusetts, “expects Massachusetts this year will win at least 20,000 extra visitors from Japan, worth an additional $75 million in economic impact,” according to a USA Today story by Barbara De Lollis. “The new Japan connection could even help the city win non-stop air service between Boston and Japan.” After his performance in last year’s World Baseball Classic, we knew Matsuzaka was good. We just didn’t know he was winning non-stop international air service good. Impressive.
World Hum World Headlines
by Jim Benning | 12.05.06 | 8:30 PM ET
News shorts for curious travelers.
Egypt
Pharaohs’ Tombs Trump Village Homes
Reports the New York Times: “Bulldozers moved Saturday into an Egyptian village near the Valley of the Kings in pursuit of a long-delayed effort to allow archaeologists to begin studying a wealth of tombs in the area.” More than 100 houses have been cleared in the last week. Interesting. In Los Angeles, they’d more likely destroy historic tombs to build new houses.
USA
What’s your travel terror score?
Did you know you had one? “Almost every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is assessed based on [Automated Targeting System’s] analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered,” the Associated Press reports. Creepy.
Spain
Bona tarda or buenas tardes?
The Los Angeles Times explores the pitched battle over languages in Catalonia. “Some ATMs in Spain offer a choice of six languages, four of which are the Spaniards’ own.”
Japan
Ping, Ka-Ching, Ka-Boom!
Money raised from Japan’s pachinko habit just might be supporting North Korea’s nuclear program, the Los Angeles Times reports. “The machines rake in more than $200 billion a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea.” As a result, some players are souring on the game.
USA
Bright lights, big city, mucho vino
Novelist Jay McInerney has a great side gig: traveling the world to write about wine for Home & Garden. Now, a number of those columns have been collected in a new book, A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine. His interest in wine “started with literature, really—as with so many other things,” he says in San Diego Reader. Among the inspirational books: Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited.”
Hide the California Rolls! Here Comes Japan’s ‘Sushi Police’
by Michael Yessis | 11.27.06 | 9:10 AM ET
Japan has a problem with the proliferation of Japanese restaurants around the world: Too often, Japanese government officials say, they give Japanese food a bad name. “A fast-growing list of gastronomic indignities—from sham sake in Paris to shoddy sashimi in Bangkok—has prompted Japanese authorities to launch a counterattack in defense of this nation’s celebrated food culture,” writes Anthony Faiola in the Washington Post. “With restaurants around the globe describing themselves as Japanese while actually serving food that is Asian fusion, or just plain bad, the government [in Tokyo] announced a plan this month to offer official seals of approval to overseas eateries deemed to be ‘pure Japanese.’”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Skimpy Skirts and Thunderbolts
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.06 | 11:30 AM ET
There’s a hint of fear in the air, but, as always, we’re still hitting the road. This week the Zeitgeist leads to Paris, Dubai, Iowa, Mexico City and the most scenic toilet in the world. Let’s go.
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World Hum (this week)
Japanese Tourists Succumb to “Paris Syndrome”
* I’ve seen a bit of coverage of this story this week, and the New York Post gets the best headline award: Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried.
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Beyond Skimpy Skirts, a Rare Debate on Identity
* Hassan M. Fattah’s story explores the limits of multiculturalism in Dubai.
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The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* Two weeks in a row at the top for Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
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Hotels Ditch Imposing Desks for Friendly ‘Pods’
* Three reasons why: To lure younger customers, to improve employee productivity and, of course, to increase revenue.
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Apple’s Gift to Travelers: Magsafe Airline Power Adapter
Japanese Tourists Succumb to ‘Paris Syndrome’
by Michael Yessis | 10.24.06 | 8:09 AM ET
Or, as the New York Post headline goes, “Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried.” Funny headline for an amusing story—amusing, at least, for everyone but the Japanese travelers who get “Paris Syndrome.” The Post and Reuters, among others, are relaying a story from the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, which claims that “a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations.” Paris Syndrome was first reported in 2004 in a psychiatric journal. According to AA Gill, there is a cure. He writes in the Times: “The cure is called Rome, though there are side effects: it’s very addictive.”
Japan’s “Freeters” Take Manhattan
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.06 | 6:40 AM ET
Freeters are “a Japanese version of slackers,” and according to a great story in Sunday’s New York Times, they’re escaping their home country’s societal pressures by running off to New York City to explore the arts. “In Tokyo bookstores, guides like ‘Finding Yourself in New York,’ and ‘The ‘I Love New York’ Book of Dreams’ fuel the fantasies of those [who] follow in [D.J.] Kaori’s footsteps,” writes Sheridan Prasso. “In an indication that a phenomenon has truly taken off, there’s a contrarian title, ‘Even If You Live in New York, You Won’t Be Happy.’” According to the story, more Japanese live in New York than any city outside Japan.
Japanese Theme Parks Offer an “Abridged Grand Tour For the Fast-Food Generation”
by Michael Yessis | 08.04.06 | 3:02 AM ET
One of the highlights of a trip I took to Japan a few years ago was a visit to Spa World, an eight-story resort located in the Shin-Sekai section of Osaka that aims to transport its visitors to far-off countries and continents and, sometimes, back through time via re-creations of spa and bathing experiences from around the globe. Like the smiling mechanical crabs I saw hanging on restaurant walls and the “Three Minutes Happiness” store I visited, I chalked it up as just another piece of Japanese kitsch. Earlier this week, though, the New York Times added some perspective with an interesting story about the country’s penchant for building meticulous theme-park re-creations of other countries, including the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. “These parks, some of which cost as much as $2.5 billion to build, are by and large a product of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’ of the 1980’s, a response to the newfound interest in travel that was spawned during this period of frenzied economic growth,” writes Katie Kitamura. “Many opened shortly after the 1990 crash of the Japanese economy.”
Around the Globe with No Clothes On
by Michael Yessis | 08.01.06 | 9:40 PM ET
Michael Yessis visited seven countries in less than three hours -- all without a swimsuit -- at Spa World, Japan's kitschiest, most worldly spa.
Vanuatu Tops “Happy Planet Index”
by Michael Yessis | 07.14.06 | 11:42 AM ET
And the nations with the world’s largest economies finished down the 178-nation list. Way down. Germany ranked 81st, Japan 95th and the United States 150th. The New Economics Foundation, which bills itself as a “think-and-do tank,” says its inaugural Happy Planet Index “moves beyond crude ratings of nations according to national income, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” The new index, they say, produces “a more accurate picture of the progress of nations based on the amount of the Earth’s resources they use, and the length and happiness of people’s lives.” A BBC News story quotes Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, as saying that the index “was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life’s environmental impact.” Layard continues: “Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier.” So which countries besides the island nation of Vanuatu are happiest? Colombia and Costa Rica round out the top three. Burundi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe finished at the bottom.
Bush, Koizumi and Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches for Everyone*
by Michael Yessis | 06.30.06 | 6:22 AM ET
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is such an Elvis fan he’s got to have a fried PB&J for lunch today, doesn’t he? It’s the day he and President George W. Bush say farewell to each other with a trip to Memphis to visit Graceland. Priscilla and Lisa Marie will be their guides. ABC News, among others, has details.
Tokyo for Under $1,000 a Week, Including Airfare
by Jim Benning | 06.29.06 | 12:20 PM ET
Travel writer Ben Brazil recently accomplished this very feat—nibbling sashimi, enjoying private city tours, wandering through Asakusa’s old temples. Please, he writes in Sunday’s Washington Post, “refrain from envy.” As he discovered, Tokyo is not the world’s most expensive city anymore: “It’s fallen all the way to No. 2.”
Bush, Koizumi Headed to Graceland
by Michael Yessis | 06.15.06 | 9:09 AM ET
The hair should have tipped me off. Turns out Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is a huge Elvis Presley fan. How huge? “The 64-year-old PM is well known as the most serious Elvis disciple of today’s world leaders,” according to the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column. “He shares a birthday (Jan. 8) with the rock icon, and his brother once ran the Presley fan club’s Yokohama chapter. In 1987, he was one of the key players in erecting a bronze statue of Presley in Tokyo. He’s sung Elvis tunes poolside at [President] Bush’s Crawford ranch and dazzled Condi Rice with his knowledge of Elvis trivia at a G8 dinner. And in 2001, he released a 25-song compilation CD called ‘Junichiro Koizumi Presents: My Favorite Elvis Songs.’ It was sold only in Japan, and all proceeds went to charity.”