There's a Chinese translator who can be paged to help with the immigration process, but with domestic connections your best bet, like others suggested, is a fellow passenger who understands both Chinese and English and can walk with your in-laws to T3. While there are signs for rechecking baggage, the area can be chaotic and especially confusing for first-time, non-English speaking visitors.
Remind your in-laws not to bring any food (agricultural products) off the plane with them. They should finish everything on the plane, or throw the rest away before getting to immigration, otherwise they can be held up unnecessarily. All of their bags will be opened. While US custom (at ORD) will never acknowledge their practice of racial profiling, the fact is every Chinese, Chinese-American (or anyone who looks east Asian) gets every piece of their luggage opened and contents tossed around, while everyone else gets waved through.
While 3 hours is a long time to get past immigration and to get to a domestic connection, it takes significantly more time for first-time visitors to clear immigration (extra paperwork).
By the way, wouldn't PVG-SFO-AUS on UA be a better alternative? There's no shortage of US Custom or TSA personnel who can speak Chinese at SFO.
Originally Posted by
sfmaus
My Mandarin (and Suzhounese) speaking in-laws will be traveling PVG/ORD/AUS in October. I'm trying to give them as much information as I can about what to expect and how to make the transfer at ORD. The O'Hare maps, both at the O'Hare and AA web site don't have a lot of detail, but it looks like they'll clear customs and immigration in terminal 5, recheck their bags, take a shuttle train to terminal 3 and then go through security and out to the gate. They speak no English. Will there be any customer service people to help them out? Is there anything they need to know? They have three hours between flights, so I'm not that worried about time. I also think there's a good chance of a Chinese speaking fellow passenger on their inbound flight also making a transfer who could help them out, but any advice would be appreciated.