Hong Kong Python User Group organizer here.

I agree with both the OP and you, and I notice the same problems in Hong Kong as well with a varying degree, though I wouldn't put too much emphasis on "The Chinese Culture" (I don't even know what defines contemporary Chinese culture anymore, let alone the Chinese hacker subculture) but more on __information__ barrier.

Notice I didn't use the word language.

The internet in China, and media in general, as you know, is a tightly controlled and filtered walled garden. Kids in China don't grow up watching English language TV, movies and listening to music sung in English. English aren't taught until high school. Even if they have the talent, tenacity and resources to learn English really really well. They have nothing to talk about with people from the rest of world because they simply lack a common cultural context. This tremendously inhibits English learning in China.

With the lack of access to good language reference materials, very often the only way for the Chinese to learn anything tech is to read books, mags and blogs that translate technical materials from the outside world. While books translated are often in good quality as far as fidelity goes, magazines and blogs are not so much so. Even when they are translated properly, there are only so many people capable of translating them, and they only understand so much that they are translating. The number of materials available in Chinese is extremely limited, and when they are available in English, they are translated 6 months to years late. 6 months is a very long time in tech.

Education is also lacking. Very very very few secondary schools teach programming. Universities are better, and some do teach good fundamental theories. As far as programming languages though, I suppose even if you are educated in the US, you probably still have to catch up as soon as you graduate. I know, because I just graduated from the US a couple years ago.

Low pay is also a big problem. Engineers are generally treated like slightly upgraded factory workers. The only ones who stay are the ones who truly love what they are doing, but there are only so many of them around, so the chances for you to be mentored by an expert is low.

All the odds are against you for you ascending to a world-class programmer in China.

On the bright side, you do see a lot of semi-popular README files on Github and NPM that's written completely in Chinese, so it seems that they are figuring out things their own way, in their own language, sharing with they own people.

Now onto Hong Kong. HK is actually quite similar to China with the major exception that the GFW doesn't exist in HK and command in English is generally good enough to communicate with the outside world. Technical materials are readily available and are often read first hand. Education though, is the same story as China, though the problem where the brightest kids don't go into engineering and CS is even more pronounced in HK due to our economic structure. Low pay, suits throwing around charts etc. Same thing. Less fragmented tech groups in HK. We do talk to other tech groups and startup groups a lot, but not enough local participants just the same. Barcamp talks hover around the how to use Bootstrap and Drupal variety.