Asian Suicide, it's not caused by "Culture" or "Confucianism".

ScienceDaily -  Although Asian-Americans as a group have lower rates of thinking about and attempting suicide than the national average, U.S.-born Asian-American women seem to be particularly at risk for suicidal behavior, according to new University of Washington research.

The study shows 15.93 percent of U.S.-born Asian-American women have contemplated suicide in their lifetime, exceeding national estimates of 13.5 percent for all Americans. The finding comes in a study published in the current issue of the journal Archives of Suicide Research. Lifetime estimates of suicide attempts also were higher among U.S-born Asian-American women than the general population, 6.29 percent vs. 4.6 percent.

Data from the study were drawn from the larger National Latino and Asian-American Study and were based on bilingual interviews with almost 2,100 individuals at least 18 years of age. Two-thirds were immigrants from Asia and women made up 53 percent of the respondents. Participants included 600 Chinese, 520 Vietnamese, 508 Filipinos and 467 other Asians, including Japanese, Koreans and Asian Indians.

"It is unclear why Asian-Americans who were born in the United States have higher rates of thinking about and attempting suicide," said Aileen Duldulao, a UW doctoral student in social work and lead author of the study. "There is the theory of the 'healthy immigrant' that proposes immigrants may be healthier on average than U.S-born Americans, because of the selectivity of migration or the retention of culturally-based behaviors. But it is unclear if this theory is the mechanism at work with regard to our findings."

The suicide data echo a 2006 study that showed Asian immigrants to the U.S. have significantly lower rates of psychiatric disorders than American-born Asians and other native-born Americans. That study's lead author was David Takeuchi, a UW professor of social work and sociology who is also a co-author of the suicide study. Seunghye Hong, who recently earned her doctorate in social work from the UW, also contributed to the suicide study.

The new research also found that:

• The percentage of Asian-Americans who reported thinking about suicide increased the longer they lived in the U.S.
   
• *Young Asian-Americans, between 18 and 34, had the highest estimates of thinking about (11.9 percent), planning (4.38 percent) and attempting suicide (3.82 percent) of any age group
   
• Asian-Americans who were never married reported the highest lifetime estimates of thinking about (17.9 percent) planning (7.6 percent) and attempting (5 percent) suicide.
   
• There were few major differences by ethnicity, although Chinese (10.9 percent) and Filipinos (9.76 percent) reported the highest rates of thinking about suicide.

"This study highlights the fact that we may be underserving Asian-American women born in the U.S," said Duldulao. "While there was little evidence of sociodemographic differences in suicidal behaviors among various Asian-American groups, there was some anecdotal data from people working in the community. It is important for service providers, as well as policymakers, to know that U.S.-born Asian-Americans, particularly the second generation, are at high risk for mental health problems and suicidal behavior.

"In most cultures suicide is just as unacceptable as it is here. It is pretty much a taboo. That's why this study is important and why Asian-American communities need to talk more about suicide and mental health," she said.

The researchers used a modified version of a World Health Organization questionnaire to assess whether and at what age people had suicidal thoughts, made suicide plans or attempted suicide.

The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research at the National Institutes of Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The article above was taken from Sciencedaily

It has becomine largely concerning for the amount of poor quality journalism out there these days, it seems to me that almost every Asian issues has been severly misrepresented.
Suicide is one of the biggest Asian issues circulating the western mainstream media and it seems to me that these faked stories contain racial myths that has somehow slipped 'fictional quarantine'.

For those who have not noticed the same stories are recycled over and over again and the same bunch of lies have only spread more ignorance amongst the ppopulation. It has become obviously that these stories are there to dehumanize Asian people.

Anyone with half a brain can only feel insulted by the amount of rubbish that is continually feed to us.

Teh stories we hear about Asian suicide has done nothing but create a further neglect to the social problem that is affecting all communities and not just the Asian communities.

There is no doubt that there remains a mental health amongst ethnic minorities groups.

Ironically these "Experts" as the media claims, have resort to pure racism when they represent these Asian American issues, blaming race and culture attributing to these problems yet clearly the above article has clearly pointed out that it is definitely not culture, traditons or values.

However, what surprises me most are the self discriminating Asians who pen inacurate stories about Asian people that carry an anti-asian vice. These articles criticisize racial groups and frames wrongly culture as responsible for suicide, that is no better than those false stories about Chinese people resenting females and favor the males.

An example can be seen here with Andrew Lam's article (we suspect is probably not even Asian due to the amount of inaccuracies he wrote about)

"Asian Americans' Rising Suicide Rates -- Three Students Take their Lives"

"Community practitioners notice that Asian Americans are less likely to self-disclose their personal problems," Sue told Time magazine article in 2008. Asian Americans are also less likely than other groups to rely on mental health services, according to studies, and they prefer instead to rely on culturally acceptable traditions of discipline and family order.

Or something extremely backwards like this:

Mandarins of various ranks were selected by how well they fared on extremely rigorous examinations. The brilliant few who passed ran the day-to-day operations of imperial China and Vietnam. A Mandarin could become a governor, a judge, or even marry into the royal family. A peasant thus could rise high above his station, elevating the status of his entire clan and honor his ancestors in the process. It all hinged on his ability to pass the difficult exams.

Seriously that was 2000 years ago and people killed themselves for a variety of reasons and hardships, nothing different to what every other human being has thought about at some stage. Not just Asian people.

An old mythology follows many of us across the sea: Only perfection matters and, by logic, its opposite, failure is rooted in shame. In his analects, Confucius recommended this philosophy when it comes to ruling people: “Lead the people with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously." Even if much of the Confucian ethos have eroded, many old rites and ritual practices long forgotten since communism takeover and modernization began, the one thing that remains in operation is that sense of shame, and how it still profoundly grips the East Asian psyche. To lose face may still cause many an Asian to commit suicide.

Chinese culture encourages youths to take their education seriously. That being said it does not teach Asians to recklessly throw away their  own lives simply because they can't cope with failure or hardship.
To much samurai movies perhaps? A good parent would only tell their child to practice self improvement.

In this case, I think many people have been self misguided some of which maybe caused by either bad parenting, lack of counseling services, lack of access to healthcare, inequality, isolation, or just bad media.

So why would the media defame our people by telling us to blame our culture? do they want us to become total losers or stay comfortable with failure for the rest of their lives?

Obviously that's is not the moral of the story here and defintely not how Asians people are taught in their culture. Typical Asian lecture by parents would be nothing more than work hard or study hard and often it can be both.

If we fail, we learn to try harder next time.

Perhaps something like this would be a positive approach to addressing issue for suicide.