The teams from city, state and federal agencies, working together through the Small Business Resource Center, have visited largely English-speaking and Western-oriented businesses in places such as Hale'iwa, Kailua, Pearlridge and around Honolulu International Airport. They've gotten a positive reception to their offers of hundreds of small business workshops, applications for loans and access to a computer lab to design Web sites, said Jane Sawyer of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

In Chinatown, the teams aren't quite sure what to expect.

"There may be language difficulties," said David Brown, a development specialist with the Small Business Administration who is leading the Chinatown effort. "Unfortunately, none of us speak Chinese." Or Lao, Vietnamese, Tagalog or Ilocano, the other languages and dialects heard around Chinatown businesses.

Along with language problems, some immigrant business owners may not be comfortable with a visit from representatives of governmental agencies, said Reuben Wong, president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.

"I don't think it's necessarily distrust of the government," he said. "I think it's just lack of understanding."

But Jenny Louie believes that the services offered at the year-old Small Business Resource Center helped her and her husband, Eddee Louie, with their photography and sign business on North King Street.

"My English no good," Jenny Louie said. But the workshops she took to learn about computer programs, accounting and taxes were valuable and could help other Chinatown businesses, Louie said.

She tries to attend the workshops whenever possible at the resource center at Chinatown Gateway Plaza on Nu'uanu Avenue. The people there even asked if business students from Hawai'i Pacific University could use the Louies' company as an example for marketing ideas, which translated into new ideas for the business.

"I tell all my friends from China, 'Our English not so good,' " Louie said. "'But there are lots of things to learn. We should take more classes.' "

Larry Tran, who runs the Ledo Vietnamese Restaurant on Maunakea Street, got both knowledge and motivation from his sessions at the Small Business Resource Center.

He hopes that the teams that go into Chinatown tomorrow know to ask English-speaking children or relatives of business owners to help translate.

"Especially in the Chinatown area," he said, "it works like that. Businesses here are family-oriented."

The biggest obstacle might be overcoming cultural mistrust of government officials, said Tran, who was born in Vietnam.