How do you cope with drawings?
In my last job my boss was fluent in Mandarin, German, French and Spanish. He got my arse out of the fire no end of times. His English was crap!
The Official contract, and contract specifications, as you would expect are indeed in simplified Mandarin, to comply with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce rules/regulations, but the working documents and drawings are in the main, all in English.
The main contractor is a actually a consortium of Chinese, Hong kong, Australian contractors. So even the 2 Chinese contractors don't speak the same language, as Hong kong speak Cantonese and use traditional Chinese. Mainland Chinese speak Mandarin and use simplified Chinese lol!! So in effect it makes sense to use English as the common language. lol!!
Can't think of any project i've been involved with overseas, that hasn't used English as the project language. That includes an earlier project in China, Saudi, UAE, Egypt, HK, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and a good few more!! lol!!
Most of the this projects Contract and Specifications have been originally composed/written in English by British, Aussie, German Architects and Consultant companies, then translated into Mandarin for the Official Chinese submittal to the C of C along with the consortium's documents...
It all sounds a bit complicated, but not, ...the bottom line, anyone of importance on the project, be they Engineering or Administration speak pretty good English. ....Well most of the time anyway... lol!!!