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Chinese tourists, besotted with image of Paris, find harsher reality
Some Chinese are targeted and attacked by thieves. Others encounter indifference or rudeness, and some vow not to return.
The New York Times
MARLENE AWAAD / The New York Times
Tourists read maps on the Pont des Arts in Paris, the No. 1 destination in Europe for China's middle class and legion of millionaires, who may have unrealistic expectations of the city.
PARIS — Before arriving in the French capital, Wu Shuyun, a 56-year-old Chinese housewife, imagined Paris to be like a pristine film set for a romantic love story, picturing herself as a glamorous princess surrounded by elegant Parisians, decked out, perhaps, in Chanel.
Instead, Wu from Kunming in southwest China, said she was shocked by the cigarette butts and dog manure, the rude insouciance of the locals and the gratuitous public displays of affection. Though friends had warned her about thieves targeting Chinese people, she said she was nevertheless surprised when a member of her tour group was mugged on a packed Metro car, as other riders watched.
“For the Chinese, France has always been romantic, mysterious and desirable. We have been told that ‘God lives in France,’” she said recently after a two-week tour that included stops at the Eiffel Tower and Galeries Lafayette, an imposing, upscale department store with stained-glass domes where tour buses stop hourly to deposit tourists for marathon shopping sessions
. “Once I realized that the Parisians were indifferent, I made the decision: Try to make the most of this trip, but never come back to Paris again.”
A growing number of Chinese tourists in Paris — armed with wads of cash, typically unable to speak French and still somewhat naive about the ways of the West after decades of China’s relative isolation — are falling victim to their unrealistic expectations of the city, while also being victimized by brazen thieves who target them because they are easily identifiable as Asian, Chinese tourism industry officials here say.
Alarm that Chinese tourists are at risk from bandits is so acute that the Chinese government recently considered sending police officers to Paris to help protect them. Paris tourism officials said the proposal was shelved amid concerns over how they would operate.
The French capital — celebrated for its beauty, culture and savoir faire — still retains huge allure, making it the No. 1 destination in Europe for China’s burgeoning middle class and growing legion of millionaires, according to the European Federation of Chinese Tourism. Nearly 1 million Chinese tourists came to Paris last year, according to the Paris Tourism Office, spending more than 1 billion euros on everything from Cartier watches to Michelin-starred restaurants, and outspending both Japanese and Americans on shopping. Now, however, Paris’ glittering image in China is losing its luster amid reports of robberies of Chinese tourists, according to Chinese newspapers and social media.
A group of 75 French luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Hermès, warned last year that high-spending Chinese tourists fearful for their safety could choose to go to Italy or Britain instead. Concerns about the consequences for the country’s vaunted tourism industry have intensified as the French economy has stagnated.
According to the Paris-based European Federation of Chinese Tourism, which represents 30 travel agencies catering to Chinese tourists, the number of group tours coming to the French capital has fallen 20 percent so far this year compared with 2013. The Paris Tourism Office said that a 21 percent jump in the number of Chinese tourists last year had nearly halved in 2014.
Chinese nerves were already frayed after a group of 23 Chinese tourists on a tour of Europe were attacked in March of last year in the gritty northern suburbs of Paris just hours after they landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The group leader was injured, and the thieves fled with 7,500 euros — about $9,600 — passports and plane tickets.
After six Chinese students studying winemaking were mugged in Bordeaux three months later, Beijing demanded that the French government take action.
Pierre Shi, secretary general of the European Federation of Chinese Tourism, said Chinese visitors were being preyed upon because they were known to carry large amounts of cash to avoid paying multiple currency exchange fees. Bargain-seeking Chinese tour operators were also booking hotels in Paris’ northern suburbs.
“Chinese tourists are attracted to Paris by the glamour, by the desire to buy designer brands, by an image of France as a country of philosophers and revolution,” said Shi, who runs his own travel agency, ID Travel Pro. “But now, they are afraid to come. Before, they wouldn’t think twice.”
Psychologists warned that Chinese tourists shaken by thieves and dashed expectations were at risk for Paris Syndrome, a condition during which foreigners suffer depression, anxiety, feelings of persecution and even hallucinations when their rosy images of Champagne, majestic architecture and Monet are upended by the stresses of a city whose natives are also known for being among the unhappiest people on the planet.
The expression was first coined 30 years ago by a Paris-based Japanese psychiatrist, Hiroaki Ota, after several Japanese visitors to Paris fell ill when their culture of politeness and reserve rubbed up against Gallic haughtiness.
Ota said in an interview in his office that because China had been closed off to the West for so long, some Chinese travelers could be at risk for culture shock and depression when faced with the harsher realities of a city they had over-idealized. But he noted that the Chinese were less susceptible to Paris Syndrome than the Japanese, since they were fortified by a directness and an outsized sense of self that was similar to the French.
“Whereas Japanese are reserved, polite and formal, the Chinese have a strong sense of national pride like the French, and they are not shy,” he said.
Thomas Deschamps, the head of research at the Paris Tourism Office, said culture shock was particularly prevalent among travelers from Asia, who sometimes wrongly perceived the French capital as a museum.
“They watch movies like ‘Amélie Poulain’; they think all Parisians carry Louis Vuitton purses and smell like Dior,” he said. “They don’t know about the working-class suburbs, the overworked waiters, the grittier parts of the city. Paris is not a museum. People are busy, they are stressed, they are living their lives.”
To help protect and reassure Chinese tourists, Deschamps said, the city has beefed up security at popular sites like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, while instituting warnings in Mandarin to be vigilant against pickpockets on the Paris Metro.
The Paris police have also introduced complaint forms in Chinese.
Meanwhile, the tourism industry has redoubled its efforts to be more culturally sensitive. An online guide for hotels and businesses produced by the Chamber of Commerce for Tourism in Paris notes that for visiting Chinese, a “simple smile and hello in their language will plainly please them.”
While thieves and Gallic aloofness could be a hazard, some Chinese in Paris said they deserved some of the blame for the French reactions they sometimes provoked.
“The Chinese are used to spitting. We are used to snapping our fingers to get attention, or even yelling,” said Shi, the Chinese travel agency federation chief. “But if you do that with a French waiter, they will ignore you even more.”
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