suicide in japan.

Suicide in Japan.
As heart breaking as this is I feel this is something more people should know about.
Similarly to China and India, Japanese culture takes a view that, in comparison to European and American cultures, is relatively tolerant of suicide. However, recent events in Japan and some of the highest rates of suicide in the world among younger people have forced the Japanese government to take a more critical view of suicide as a "problem". As in China, suicide is traditionally viewed as a means of maintaining one's honor, perhaps more so - a ritual self-disembowelling known as Seppuku was in common use in Feudal Japan, and while this tradition largely faded out with the demise of the Samurai and the introduction of a western-style society, many young Japanese people of today still perceive suicide as an acceptable means to avoid bringing shame or dishonor upon their family. By 2008, an average of 30,000 Japanese had killed themselves every year for 10 years, according to the Yomiuri Shinbun; in 2007 274 Japanese school children took their own lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_views_of_suicide#Japan

Aokigahara (青木ヶ原, Aokigahara), also known as the Sea of Trees (樹海, Jukai), is a forest that lies at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. The caverns found in this forest are rocky and ice-covered, even during summertime. It is an old forest reportedly haunted by many legends of monsters, ghosts, and goblins.
It is also a popular place for suicides, due in some part to the novel Kuroi Jukai (Black Forest), which ends with the lovers of the novel committing suicide in the forest. In 2002, 78 bodies were found within the forest, replacing the previous record of 73 in 1998.^[1] The high rate of suicide has led officials to place signs within the forest, urging those who have gone there specifically with the purpose of suicide in mind to seek help and not kill themselves. The annual search, consisting of a small army of police, volunteers and attendant journalists, began in 1970.^{[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara}