I started a war of words with Kazuko by saying that the Japanese have a higher suicide rate because of the actions of their revered historical figures among other things. I think I finally won her over by giving her a long diatribe in the car this morning:
The Japanese Suicide rate is high because there isn't a lot of shame in suicide over there. In fact there is some honour in that they can recover debt for their families by having them collect the life insurance in some cases.
Almost every big historical war story taught in Japanese history, involves honourable deaths by self inflicted injury. Japanese warriors killed themselves with honour and also Japanese military as recently as WWII were equipped with grenades in war to kill themselves when caught. This not only instills a sense of honour to suicide but even some pressure to kill yourselves, pressure handed down by the governing body of the Japanese people. This feeling bleeds into the Japanese people today subconsciously. Related to this, the Japanese have special positive terms involving Suicide: Hari Kari & Kamikaze.
There really aren't positive suicide words in english, even assisted suicide, uses the evil word suicide.
Japan is also not a christian nation and therefore do not have the stigma that the US or Europe has, where there is great shame in killing yourselves(not fighting to the death as it were), and you will go to hell if you do it and be subjected to endless torture.
Of course there are many suicides in places other than Japan, but Japan has the highest ratio and all these factors add up to this.
The fact that you can't just give your house up when steeped in debt in Japan, because the lenders will repossess all that you own and then go after your families possessions, also pressures people into thinking they have no future and the best way out is suicide.
At the final moment before pulling the trigger, I think people in Christian nations(wether christian themselves or not, they are still governed by their christian history and the decisions made by historical figures based on their beliefs) will more often subconsciously fear the death or the shame of suicide and not do it, whereas in Japan, there really isn't anything to stop them at that witching hour. In fact, there are many reasons to push them over that edge.
