Thanks for your reply!

No CX because that will only solve the second problem I mentioned, which is the least worrying one as I believe there are probably Cantonese speaking crew on board. I have also seen cabin crew communicating with passengers just by pointing at the menus, since the menu in different translations are in the same order. She has also travelled well enough to understand procedures of flying =]

Also I simply cannot convince myself to buy a 5k ticket in business, whereas on UA its 'only' $2.5k- my grandma is the type of customers who pushes up CX O&D price but im not letting it happen. Obviously I'm only looking at direct flights here.