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I came across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan when I was reading about Japan on Wikipedia. It led me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society which says that the high suicide rate may be attributed to the societal structure. These societies set high standards for individuals and that may result in high performance from the society but, at the same time, may depress under-achievers to such an extent that people commit suicides.

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I've heard people bring up the argument of suicides when this subject comes up before. But I don't think it is a valid point because you are cherry picking statistics.

If you want to make a more fair comparison you would need to look at a variety of factors to get a overall picture.

Would it be fair for an Asian to look at the USA and pick something like school shootings ( or drug use, or criminality, or teen pregnancy - which ever stat makes the USA look worse) to attack the entire American style of parenting? Obviously it wouldn't be.

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