A mother and son move to the US...

[imcgraw]

I'm in an odd situation and was hoping to get some advice. I've been asked by a Chinese family I met in Beijing (specifically a mother and her 12 year old son) to help with their transition to the US. The son is coming here (Boston, MA) for school next year, and the mother needs to find a house, buy a car, find a personal driver, set up a bank account, etc. The son can speak a little English, but the mother really needs a more reliable way of getting set up in the States. Are their translation services that assist with this sort of thing? Money's not really the issue as much as the language barrier, and my Chinese isn't good enough to help with all her questions.

[Quest]

What level of assistance are they looking for? just translation?

[imcgraw]

No, I'm thinking something more like a personal concierge service. I can find websites of these in English, but I'm guessing most don't include an interpretation service as well. I was hoping people might have stories about similar situations and perhaps could recommend a company that could assist with this sort of thing. But maybe such companies simply don't exist.

[ipsi()]

Well, there are certainly translation services around. While it would probably cost more, you may just have to hire a translator as well as one of these concierge services. Alternatively, given how much they already do, it's almost certainly worth contacting whichever ones you like the look of and discussing the matter with them. Given that they exist to make your life easier, I'm sure they'd be able to help somehow.

Offtopic: Why is the first result for a Google search for 'personal concierge' 'How to Be a Personal Poncierge'?

[trien27]

Offtopic: Why is the first result for a Google search for 'personal concierge' 'How to Be a Personal Poncierge'?

http://www.google.com/search?q=personal+concierge&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

No, it's not. While searching for "personal concierge", the first result from Google search was "How to Become a Personal Concierge", not "How to Become a Personal Poncierge". I think you might have sticky fingers? You spelled Concierge with an initial P?

Google is a random order keyword search engine. The resulting page was the site with the most hits because it includes the words "Personal" and "Concierge" plus "How" and "Be" [you can see those are keywords: they all use a capitalized initial. ] in their META tag plus many other keywords, which is included in source code (the original code that appears when you first wrote the program, before any drafts or revisions). Since it's not case-sensitive, capitalized or lowercased words would appear.

In order to explain it to you, I need to use programming terms. Otherwise, I'll just use plain English.

[Quest]

I am actually willing to help, since I live in Boston, but not sure how committed I'd want to be... certainly can't be their personal driver or any long term commitment, as I wouldn't have the time... but finding shelter, getting a car, and setting up a bank account seem easy enough, if money's not the issue. PM me.

[jessie520]

i think the better way is you help them find a chinese in US.And this chinese can speak mandarin and english so well.Then he can communicate with that boy and his mother without any problem.The most important things is he has the ability to teach boy to improve his english level.So does his mother.

Cause you said money is not a issue for them,then,i believe you can find a suitable chinese who's lived in US.

[ipsi()]

Wups. That'd be me totally not paying attention.

I'm also aware of how search engines get their results (not the specifics, but generally aware). I was just trying to express surprise that the top result is something on "How to Become a PC", as opposed to something like "Personal Concierge Services". Is it really that popular?

Anyway, that's totally off-topic.

Back on topic: Any luck yet?

[heifeng]

Ok...wait only 12 years old...misread this the first time.

So, I think they should find some local college kids to help out. College kids are still friendly and eager to help people (generally they still have that twinkle in their eye)...plus usually in US colleges there are Chinese associations:wink: And usually college students are broke so if money is not an option ...must be nice....then let them help take a college student off ramen noodles for a bit. The kid is still young so I'm sure there should be some jiejie or gege around to fawn all over him and help him out...

look, 2 seconds on google and here or here

[ipsi()]

He's 12 years old... He's almost certainly not going to a University, and is unlikely to be much good at researching this sort of thing.

[heifeng]

hahah changed it before you posted. see who's quicker! like I said, misread it...well more like just scanned it to quickly the first time...

[here2learn]

I agree with the idea of finding them someone from the chinese population in Boston who can speak chinese. Maybe go on Craigslist.com(?) or even Myspace or some other place where people go to make friends or put classifieds... and put an ad for such a person.

[imcgraw]

Thanks for all the suggestions. If I'm going to go the college student route, then I'll probably just track down one of my native-speaker friends and have them help. I was hoping there might exist some sort of company that eased the transition to the states for foreigners, but it doesn't sound like anyone has heard of such a thing. Maybe I can find an interpretation service AND a concierge service of some sort, and work it out that way.