Can you give a couple of examples where racial catagorization is different than here in the USA?

Answer 1

Yes. One anyway.

Here in Britain, forms sometimes ask about ethnic origin (always voluntarily). Usually the categories are white British, white Irish, other white background, black African, black Caribbean, other black background, Asian (meaning from the Indian subcontinent), Oriental (meaning Chinese, Malay, etc), other.

Sometimes it's simplified into white, black, Asian (ie Indic), other, as in this report:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200304/jtselect/jtrights/12/12we09.htm
According to Home Office data, just under 1.3 million people suspected of committing an offence are arrested every year. In 2001-02, of this 1.3 million arrests, 97,800 (8%) were recorded as being black, 55,600 (4%) as Asian and 11,800 (1%) as being of other "non-white" groups. This represented a rise of 7% for Asian and 12% for black arrestees when compared with the previous year.