I know a chinese-american woman whose parents raised her with Chinese spiritual beliefs. She had a little shrine in her house, of some sort. I asked her what her family actually worshipped. She had never thought about it, she just did it. So she went and asked her father about it. He said, “we worship our ancestors”. I told her that we Catholics had a special reverence for and closeness to our ancestors in faith— the Saints. Eventually my friend married a Catholic chinese-american.
I think maybe the Chinese would find Catholicism very comforting, precisely because of the heritage involved. They might find a faith without “silly traditions” to be very un-chinese.
This notion led to a huge feud between the Jesuits, on one side, who wanted to allow converts to continue rites honoring (or worshipping, depending on your POV, Confucius and their ancestors) and the Franciscans and Dominicans, who wants all such rites prohibited as idolatry.
The controversy lasted from roughly 1640 to 1740, with the anti-rites side winning by a Papal decision. This was eventually reversed in 1939 and reinforced by Vatican II.
The controversy played a big role in Chinese government banning and eventually persecuting Christians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy