Asking for a small business favor (whom and how) Let's say my current job requires me to contact a certain hardware manufacturer in China and request technical documentation. But they don't speak English and I don't speak Chinese. Hiring a commercial translator would be impractical due to the number of reasons.

Which of the ways of dealing with the situation would be more (culturally) appropriate?


Asking one of my known business contacts to do this for me.


In this case, what should I offer in return - a similar favor or a small amount of $?


Using machine translation.


Which could lead to prolonged and tediously unproductive conversation, wasting the manufacturer's time.


Making acquaintance with someone speaking both English and Chinese remotely (like in a chat or language exchange group) and asking them for a favor on the same terms as in pt. 1


Which is fine in my country, but I'm not sure if it wouldn't look weird or insulting elsewhere.
I think something is left out of the question and I have problem understanding why there is a problem in the first place. If you need/want to contact someone with whom you don't share a common language, the obvious solution is to hire a translator. What exactly are the reasons that make hiring a translator impractical? 

Whether you want to pay fair compensation to hire a qualified person to represent your business, or you'd rather ask someone to do it for free (or for a small gift), or use machine, or simply grab some stranger in an internet chat group, is entirely up to you. It depends on how you wish to present your company to your contact and how much control you wish to have over the situation. 

You also said that getting someone over the net to do it for you is fine in your country. I don't think there is anything cultural about that. If that's who you'd rather have to represent your company, it's absolutely your choice. I am simply curious what country you are from.