That's a straw man; There are many cultures that have a strong emphasis on honor/shame mechanics, which in turn drive suicides in those cultures. And which match cultural expectations in a grim kind of way.

The fact that people want to change their culture is possibly an early indication of a shift, which could take decades or centuries to actually occur. And such a cultural shift can also lose momentum and be still-born.

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I find counting suicides innovative. But if you do it in a global context without looking at the cultures as confounding factor: It's wrong.

There are many other confounding factors, such as a forgiving national (personal) bankruptcy regime. The USA has a pretty forgiving regime compared to other countries. But that doesn't mean you can say it correlates with how happy people are. Because - like suicides - the number of people that go bankrupt might not significantly correlate to the average happiness rate. Because a (small) minority of people go bankrupt / commit suicide.

It's in fact perfectly reasonable and possible to suppose that a country with higher average suicides and harsher penalties for bankruptcy still ends up higher on the happiness index. Because perhaps health and social-contact / family factors impact the rating more, on average.