I'm asian too, so I definitely know the distress of highlighting black hair. I've only done it once, and I got chunky copper highlights all over. I would definitely suggest using foil to highlight. However, I'm not very high-maintenance so I got frustrated after two months when my roots started to show and died my hair back to black.
Another thing that I did in high school, which I thought was cool was one big streak in the front of copper. It was definitely fun, but my dad threatened to cut it out of my hair!
He said chinese people don't have orange hair. lol
Keep us updated on what you decide to do.
Melanie