She must like Walter very much as most Chinese would see him as food!!! 
Please don't let Walter read this I do not want to upset him. 
Willy
Yes, you are right Willy....she has remarked in the past that Walter could feed US for a week !!!
(BTW, Walter is an American cat, a Maine Coon Cat, they are the largest domestic breed and he weighs in at 20 lbs and is about 5 feet from nose to tail !!)
I told her that if she wants to eat Walter, she has got to catch him first...and if you could see the size of his teeth and claws you would realise (as she did) that it would need a sewing machine to put her back together if she tried it !!!
However...back to Zoot's original question about culture differences.....
Zoot,
There wont be cultural differences...there will be a cultural CHASM a mile wide between you and a Chinese woman and this you have to accept and deal with. You cant possibly understand what she has been through in her previous life in China.
I speak here about a mature Chinese woman, because I think things are slowly changing for the younger set now. My wife is typical in that she has lived in a World that has been male-centric and male dominated for at least the past 3000 years
Most of us here are older Men and we have married women in or around their 40.s and who have been married before and who likely have had a child.
These Women have had to accept that husband is the boss, the Master and has all the aces. She has been forced culturally to work in a job...long and hard, has been required to do all the cooking, houswork etc for husband, family and likely his parents too. Her main job has been to provide a Son...to ensure the family will be looked after in the future.
She has had no safety net of social, financial or emotional support that has been enshrined in Law for her Western counterparts. Her husband has likely and openly had one or several mistresses that he lavished attention (and money) on. She can be discarded at a moments notice with no financial settlement (My wife's ex had all the assets in his Mother's name so she could not get a penny). Emotionally, she has lived in a vacuum, Chinese husbands in general dont show affection to wives...only to mistresses !!!
If she has a daughter, she will likely be forced to accept custody and bring up the child alone with no help from him. If she has a son, it is likely that the husband will take him. She has no say in the matter.
All of this has produced one very tough woman...many western women would cave in totally under the cultural stresses and strains that she has had to live with all her life.
You have no comprehension of how hard she has done stuff...dont even try.
But when she marries a Western man she will expect him to be strong, competant, but above all show her another side of a relationship which is warm and loving. She is not used to this and needs time to get to trust you and your intentions. If she percieves you as weak...watch out , she will shut you off and get on with running her life.
Give this woman respect, face and security and she will astound you with the care and attention she gives you...willingly.
There has been lots of advice here about not letting this get into your head, its not life-threatening, you WILL have a mountain of cultural difference with her, it's inevitable. But it is also an opportunity to meet in the middle and develop your own brand of cross-culture marriage.
It's the little day-to-day things that can be managed, as many of us have written about. I dont think there is a magic bullet to remove all the cultural differences, and for me personally, I really love the difference...after all, I chose to do this, I (and the other guys here) could have chosen the conventional route and married another Western harridan !!!!.......but we got smart
