Help Others, Help Yourself

by Lan Liu
(Burnaby, Canada)

By a very accidental chance, I got to know Joy Mo online. I love her informative website, her marvellous writing style and her sincerity toward others, even a stranger like me.


As a small contribution to her website, I would like to share a story with everyone. I am a Chinese translator and interpreter. Although I have been working on language services on and off for over 10 years, I did not really start my own translation and interpretation business until a year ago. As you probably would understand, a new starter faces a lot of challenges, fierce competition, lack of clients, struggles in making the ends meet… I was no exception.


My service mainly targeted at the local law firms and legal service providers, which made my marketing even harder as the lawyers seldom had time to respond to my calls and emails. Fortunately, there was a lawyer who was willing to give me a chance to try and it turned out he was very satisfied with my work. He became my major client.


Out of gratitude, I wanted to do something extra for him as a return for his kind business. I found out that he always volunteered in writing some practical legal articles for a few English magazines and newspapers, but never had any chance to do so for the Chinese newspapers due to the simple reason that he did not know Chinese. It occurred to me that this would be my opportunity to help.


I went to the biggest local Chinese newspaper and asked them if they would like some professional inputs from a socially responsible lawyer, which would definitely benefit hundreds and thousands of their Chinese readers. I volunteered to be the translator for all his articles. The chief editor accepted my suggestion. To expressed his thanks, he agreed to give credit to the lawyer by publishing his name and contact information under his articles.


The lawyer, surprised and amazed by what I did for him, promised to pass me all the translation and interpretation tasks incurred from the cases he received from the newspaper should there be any.


To be frankly, I was very happy with what I had done, which benefited the newspaper by diversifying its contents, the readers and the Chinese community by providing them useful legal advice, the lawyer by bringing in more clients, and last but not least, myself by increasing my work volume and income.


I always believe: to help others is to help yourself, no matter they are the friends, the clients or the peers.


I wish everyone success, happiness and fortune.


Lan Liu, Amicus Language Services