Japan follows trends like a hypoglycemic kid with ADHD eating a Mars bar. New products roll in, become all the rage, and are gone within a blink of an eye. Every time I go to a convenience store there’s a new (and often strange) flavour of Pringles. Snacks, beers, and cigarettes are introduced or discontinued on a monthly basis.

Japan is also known as a very polite culture. I won’t get into this enormous misconception today, but let’s just say that the business/client relationship is generally polite. In public, people generally like to keep to themselves.

The Japanese also like to kill themselves. Their culture has a long history of suicide, and why that may or may not be a contributing factor in modern times, the fact remains that when the going gets tough, the tough get going — forever. Historically, the popular ways to off oneself included jumping in front of a train or hanging. However, if you decide to make the leap onto the tracks, keep in mind that your family will be charged something in the neighbourhood of $10,000 for inconveniencing the other commuters.

The latest craze in taking the easy way out is to mix ‘agricultural products’ with cleaning supplies, producing a toxic gas. People are doing this on their own, and with people met on internet ’suicide sites’. They’re doing it at home and in their cars. The problem is that these gases are pretty dangerous for those of us who want to remain alive, and there have been numerous reports of entire apartment buildings being evacuated due to the fumes.

A closer look at the numbers:

Government data showed at least 84 such suicides throughout Japan in May. Police have begun cracking down on popular Web sites that give specific instructions for mixing the chemicals and encourage suicides.

A total of 32,155 people killed themselves in 2006 in Japan, giving the country the ninth-highest suicide rate in the world, according to the government.

I’m just waiting for the day when the next suicide trend shifts to “Death by Wanko Soba“.