Suicide has long been thought of as "honorable" in Japanese society, since it is a way of restoring personal honor after having "failed" (or been seen to fail) in some manner...and there is a pretty high suicide rate there, relatively speaking.

The highest rates, however, appear to be in most of the former sections of the Soviet Union, and I would expect that's largely because of economic distress and pessimism about the future in those societies.