Having moved to China 2 years ago, I've had the opportunity to experience WoW China personally. And it is different to the American servers in many spectacular ways.

Subscription: In WoW China, you must activate an account through a website much like on the American servers, however the main difference is the paying method: in China, you must buy game cards that allow you to play WoW for 60 hours. You can buy these cards on the street, in shops or even in game (usual price is about 450g! at first this seemed like a huge number to me, especially since TBC came out just last week in China. However it turned out to be quite reasonable considering the amount of gold circulating on the servers) and these cards are priced at about 4 dollars (quite expensive for China). The fact that game time works by the hour has its pros and cons... cons: you can run out of time at VERY bad moments: the number of people that drop in some raids is actually staggering.

WoW Gold: As you can imagine, there are many Chinese farmers in China :p. The amount of gold you can buy is just huge. You can buy WoW gold cards on the streets and for about 13 dollars you can receive 5000 gold (again this is before TBC). These cards contain a code that you must whisper to a toon in game that will deliver the gold to you... needless to say, you don't always receive it...

Spam: You think the American servers are bad? Haha, you should try out the Chinese servers... It is virtually impossible to have a /say conversation in front of the AH in IF due to all the alts spamming Leveling and Gold services... At peak hours it gets so bad they even flood the /yell and general and trade channels. Also you consistently get spam mail from the same spammers.

Toons: These are bought very easily in China (especially because of the numbers of hackers... this is a topic discussed below). My friend bought a lvl 60 warrior fully decked out in tier 2.5 / pvp gear for a bit less than 20 dollars, and since he knew the hacker well, he even got a tier 1 priest hacked for free.

Hackers: Every account in WoW China is a potential target for these professional hackers and it is even necessary at level 60 (if you have the intention of keeping your account) to add a 8 number pin code to your account as extra security. Accounts without this additional pin code get almost instahacked. I've had a couple of friends seen their 60s hacked THE DAY THEY DINGED because they had no pin codes.

Raids: There are countless "Gold PuG" raids that take place each day... even for the veryend game instances such as Naxx or AQ 40. These "Gold Teams" are made up of usually about 20 or 25 experienced raiders that take along some noobs to gain gold and gear. No vent or online speaking software is used. The raids work this way: after each boss, players bid for the items that drop (starting at 100g for example for tier 2 sets) and people can go on increasing their bids till the others drop. Then at the end of the raid, all the gold is SPLIT UP BETWEEN ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE RAID. This can easily get you 300g per run. I've had some runs where I've gained 1k gold because people would bid 8000 gold on Ashkandi for example :D. This system is very different, and caused people to rush through content, and that is quite a pity. Another one of my friends managed to collect all his tier 2 gear and some tier 3 within 2 and a half weeks of hitting 60... However it allows people to earn gold to combat the HUGE inflations that occur in WoW China.

PvP: AB is a joke in China. The games are basically prefixed for an honor zerg. One game one faction stay at their graveyard and let their bases be 5 capped while they get aoe killed. And the next game its the opposite faction that does the same. This totally ruins the fun of AB :(. For the other battlegrounds however it is much like America though it is much harder to attain Grand Marshall... I was told you had to gain at least 3 MILLION honor a week to stay competitive in WoW China... Talk about addicts..

Talking about addicts.. the Chinese government has recently opened a military camp to help local Chinese people break their gaming addictions... i lol'd when i found out. But its probably the best solution :P

Although WoW China does have its disadvantages it is still very fun and the people are great. The Chinese are very willing to accept foreigners and will sometimes literally line up to run your toons through instances if you tell them you are American :). They are very friendly and constantly try and speak english in order to improve it. With TBC that came out last week (FINALLY) the chinese will finally be able to play the new content and who knows... maybe their bad customs will change