Knew it. I'm in a WM/AW relationship. It took us a long time to figure out each others' cultural communication patterns.

Example: If she said, "you have the big cookie, I'm not hungry," I'd take that at face value and eat the big cookie. It took me some learning to realize that that's her way of letting me have the big cookie guilt-free, even if she wants it too, because she was raised to be polite about that kind of thing.

Listen - and I say this a a caucasian: we're boors compared to East Asians. Really coarse and selfish. I guarantee that he does this reflexively without even thinking about it. Question is this: how much work are you willing to put into teaching this guy your worldview? It's gonna be a loooooong road.