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Q: Are you happily unaware of what is going on around you?
If you haven't learned Chinese, do you always know what is going on
Some examples.
- a notice is put up in your building, it has a date and a time frame, everything else is in Chinese, thus not understandable to you (you figure out the next morning as you do not have a shower, that the notice is about the water being turned off)
- a guy comes and knocks on your door, when you open he simply takes off his shoes, goes to the kitchen and start messing with the gas-pipes, when he is done he asks for a signature (the later translation of the signed paper reveals it was a gas leakage security check)
etc.
how do you deal with such situations, do you lean back and observe or do you grab Google Translate or what tools you might have and try and figure out what is going on?
For a written notice, which I believe might pertain to me, I will take a photo with my phone, and then send it to my gf via Weixin. She lets me know if it's important or not, and what to expect or what needs to be done. I've never had any random strangers that come knocking on my door, and certainly wouldn't just let them enter my residence. 
That's easy you go to someone who can tell you what the posts and signs say. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. You could do google translate all you want, but why waste your time with that when you have human resources at your disposal?
The only notices that affect me would be water & electricity. I usually look for the characters 电(electricity) or 水(water) and then the time/date posted, then I just assume that it will not be working at that time and adjust my schedule for it.
