That's not gold paint on the bridge behind me,
those are tens of thousands of padlocks.
Put there by couples wanting to symbolize their everlasting bond.
A bond that will, no doubt, hold them together into eternity
as they steadily grow apart and more resentful of the other,
eventually, spiraling down into death,
always wondering what would have happened if they'd made different choices along the way.
My issues aside, it's also a pretty good example of the difference between fantasy and reality,
because those locks will not stay there for eternity.
They will eventually rust and fall off or
the council will come along and take them off with bolt cutters as happens fairly often.
And that difference between fantasy and reality
is the basis of something called Paris syndrome.
And what it is,
is a syndrome that affected mainly Japanese tourists,
to the tune of about 20 a year,
who would be so overwhelmed by the difference between
their expectations of Paris as this city of light,
and romance,
and wonderful architecture, and art, and food, and everything,
and the reality, which is a fairly dirty and polluted European city,
the same as London or Berlin, or any other like it.
The symptoms, well,
they could be anything from delusions or hallucinations,
all the way to tachycardia, which is irregular heartbeat,
and other psychosomatic symptoms.
Is it a real thing? Well, it's difficult to tell,
because it does have journal articles about it,
and it does have scholarly references and news articles,
but I suspect if you looked at most cities with a big tourist industry,
you'd have a good number of people sent home,
just overwhelmed with jet lag and homesickness, every year.
The fact that it's Paris,
and it has this reputation,
well, perhaps people are drawing a little too much signal
from the noise of people just not able to cope
with being away from home.
Either way,
it's Paris syndrome and it's something you might now have known.
[Closed captions by MM. Translating these subtitles? Add your name here!]