Friday, August 06, 2010

Japanese Tourists


I often heard Americans "worrying" that Parisians may spot them right away because of their sneakers, caps, white socks... you name it. As if it mattered... Anyway. I thought of that when I saw these Japonese Japanese tourists at the Louvre the other day. No Parisians would ever consider using an umbrella to protect himself from the sun! Sunny days are much too scarce in Paris, we surely don't want to miss a single ray, when the sun is shining LOL!

35 comments:

  1. The right girl seems to wair a nice French black and white picture dress, though...

    ReplyDelete
  2. People are using umbrellas here too. It's sunny most of the time (unless you live in certain parts of SF ;) , and sun is known to cause skin cancer, so always best to be safe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, I am Chinese and my mother does this all the time!

    Speaking from an Asian point of view, we like to keep our skin as pale and white as possible to look more like Europeans.

    Pale skinned Asian babies are prized for their beauty...I suppose they are less at risk for skin cancer as well??!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. oooooooh they have style !


    Michael, to answer your question from yesterday, I've voted for Lynn from home, from work and from my blackberry. desperately looking for other computers to place my vote.

    I guess the next thing we can do is vote from a cyber cafe ;))

    ReplyDelete
  5. If I ever am so lucky to come to your beautiful city I will leave my umbrella at home, ha ha. How can you not love the sun.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very cute photo moment.

    I was once engaged to be married to a Japanese man, and he told me that it was considered the utmost beauty in Japan for a woman to have skin as white as snow -- hence the sun umbrella.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice catch, Eric. It's been sooo hot here and I've seen several women with sun umbrellas. You guessed it—all of the women were Asian (and they all had beautiful skin)!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eric, you have just devised an interesting term for 'Japanese' in a cute way.

    Japonais + Japanese = Japonese!

    Anyway, I've never experience Europe in summer; is the sun that glaring? I've always thought nothing can beat the sun in equatorial countries.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Some people like to feel a hot sun, others dislike it. If you get painfully sunburned a few times, it changes your perspective. I love parasols, though. I think they're a classy way to save your skin, and they don't smell or feel greasy like sun lotion. I like this group. I can't be sure, but it might be a straw sun hat worn by the man, also.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I smiled when I saw this photo today as I've spent the last month entertaining a group of visiting Japanese students and professors/tour guide from Tokyo. Umbrellas included for our overbearing Midwestern sun. They depart on Sunday and shall be missed. Perhaps their next trip will be to France. And get this...they appreciate jazz music. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nice picture to make my stressful Friday morning more relaxed...thank you Eric :-)

    I found this helpful advice, but if all fails just wear a Canadian flag on your backpack ;-))

    http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Looking-Like-an-American-Tourist

    ReplyDelete
  13. the umbrella (& the light) is what makes this picture perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I agree, they have to be from Japan.
    And that is the country with millions of umbrellas....
    All types and colors, and so creative and pretty!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. But they look so elegant with their black and white! I have to admit, I have used an unbrella for the sun in the past. I am very fair-skinned and don't tan at all, I burn and/or freckle very easily. But thanks to modern sunscreen, I can enjoy the sun just like everyone else! But even at my "tannest", I'm still really pale. If only all my freckles would join together...lol

    ReplyDelete
  16. Ahhh, but here in S. Florida, an umbrella is only used for those sporadic showers around mid-day, and hardly ever for that. We like to call it "liquid sunshine".

    I like that you caught this Eric as it's a piece of Paris that changes with the economies around the world. You can always tell which countries are having it good by the numbers that show up in Paris each year.

    ReplyDelete
  17. @Monica - Thanks! Lynn has moved up to the middle of the rankings thanks to everyone voting for her. If you haven't, or have cleared your cookies and want to again, go here to help Lynn win a trip to Paris! I'm sure we can do it!

    http://savvy.nectar.com/

    ReplyDelete
  18. Why worry? As soon as you open your mouth the game is up.

    Isn't it strange how fashions change. In Victorian Britain, middle and upper class ladies wanted porcelain white skin and would never have dreamed of allowing their skin to tan. The only women who had tanned skin were farm labourers and the like.
    Then when foreign travel came in, it became fasionable to come back with a tan to show that you could afford a holiday abroad!

    I'm off on holiday to the Mediterranean next week and will be using sunscreen, as the only thing worse than pale Northern European skin on the beach is the same skin turned a horrible bright red colour. It's a good way to spot the Brits!

    ReplyDelete
  19. No, thanks.
    I mean no umbrella for me.
    I want the Sun, the warmth.
    The memories of the Sun in my skin too, if possible.

    Enjoy your vacation, Drummond, Michael and others who are in vacation too, wherever it is.

    ReplyDelete
  20. phx-cdg,and for this comment, LHRAugust 6, 2010 at 4:41:00 PM GMT+2

    Funny how one can spot tourists. I was looking at 3 women who stood out to me in Waitrose supermarket in London recently and knew immediately they were American. Perfect haircuts,more makeup than a Brit, tailored outfits and sneakers (trainers). I was right.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thank you Eric, for this wonderful moment - a perfect catch, lovely light, a light-headed and light-weight shot....
    We mustn't forget that we are all tourists..., at most places!
    And thanks to MARTIN, for the American DO NOT link! Having lived in Canada a long time ago, I laughed out loud a few times while reading... so many memories flooded back!
    And the new TAN is WHITE SKIN... so those Japanese tourists are very right to protect themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thank you Martin for this hilarious link. I love how that is deciphered. Amazing indeed! Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  23. The "avoid looking like an American tourist" link is interesting. Unfortunately, 'Caines do often dress like they just mowed the lawn. I don't like it even here. I recall sitting on Bd Saint-Germain at Les Deux Magots and some twenty-something Yanks next to us were wearing the archetypal stuff. Including, yes, a MN Vikings jersey. They had a list of spots, and now they could check one off, and they were off to the next one on the list. I don't think they were having fun. I think they should have gone to Disneyland.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Are American tourists really so easy to spot? I wonder if I would be? I don't have a perfect haircut, I wear no makeup, and I definitely don't wear sneakers (and NO socks, not even white ones!). Hmmm....

    ReplyDelete
  25. Umbrella girl may end up spending the least at the dermatologist...protected skin and no sun damage.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I took a look at that link as well. Just to let you all know - you can spot an American tourist in the states by all those same things. I am glad to see that we (meaning me, my husband, and most family/friends we have) do a pretty good job at avoiding looking like American tourists all the time anyway, so I think we're safe if we travel abroad!

    ReplyDelete
  27. I recently spent a week in Singapore (on the way to Paris, yippeee!) and couldn't believe the number of skin whitening products. All of the major cosmetics brands have one it seems, but I've never seen them here in Australia. And as an Australian we of course are very aware of the damage can wreak on our skins and generally we wear hats on a sunny day. My family stuck out in the same way as these Japanese tourists I'm sure, wearing out hats to beat the sun. I wondered if the French don't like to mess their hair with hats? I somehow lost my hat whilst walking up the steps at the Arc de Triomphe, it took me several days and lots of searching to find a new one.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Adding to the discussion of "how to spot a ... tourist" - judging by the way they are dressed and the ladies' footwear, they are unlikely to be Japanese but probably Chinese, perhaps from China, who do very well and travel perhaps even more than the Japanese as air travel out of Asia is much less expensive than that out of Japan. Also, Japanese children are trained from infancy to sit on their legs and they can develop bow-leggedness and pronation of the feet as a result, which affect their gait. The people in the photo don't seem to have the problem at all. I've lived in Japan and it's just what I've observed. It's a wonderful country with great food and lovely people.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I would think they might be Koreans!!!

    ReplyDelete
  30. My Chinese neighbors are young - in their early twenties - and the girls use umbrellas this summer.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I think that are chines may be I am wrong but dresses and footwear telling me about Chinese

    ReplyDelete
  32. Be sure that you have never had any regrets in your life which only lasts for a few decades. Laugh or cry as you like, and it’s meaningless to oppress yourself

    ReplyDelete
  33. Be sure that you have never had any regrets in your life which only lasts for a few decades. Laugh or cry as you like, and it’s meaningless to oppress yourself

    ReplyDelete