Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton (i.e. Guangzhou) in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese.

In mainland China, it is a lingua franca in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province. Outside mainland China, it is spoken by the majority population of Hong Kong and Macau in everyday life. It is also spoken by overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia (like Singapore and Christmas Island), the United States, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Panama, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as parts of Europe, and is the most widely spoken non-Mandarin Sinitic language in the world.

While the term "Cantonese" refers narrowly to the prestige dialect described in this article, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue branch of Chinese, including related dialects such as Taishanese.

The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers across large swathes of southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible largely because of pronunciation and grammatical differences. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of the verb, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots. The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such, where with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said. This results in the situation in which a Mandarin and Cantonese text almost look the same, but both are pronounced differently.

Li Lianjie ([lì ljǎntɕjɛ̌]; born April 26, 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a naturalized Singaporean film actor, film producer, Chinese martial artist, wushu champion, and international star who was born in Beijing.

After three years of intensive training with Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team. After retiring from Wushu at age 19, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably the Once Upon A Time In China series, in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-hung.

Li's first role in a Hollywood film was as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), but his first Hollywood film leading role was in Romeo Must Die (2000). He has gone on to star in many Hollywood action films, including Kiss of the Dragon and Unleashed. He co-starred in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) with Jackie Chan, The Expendables (2010) with Sylvester Stallone, and as the title character villain in The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008) opposite Brendan Fraser. He also appeared in the Hong Kong film Ocean Heaven (2010), directed and written by Xue Xiaolu.

Jourdan Dunn (born 3 August 1990 in London, England) is a British fashion model. She was discovered in Hammersmith Primark in 2006 and signed to Storm Model Management in London shortly thereafter. In 2008, she was the first black model to walk a Prada runway in over a decade. She has attracted attention because of the lack of black models in the fashion modelling industry.

Dunn made her runway debut in the New York shows in the fall of 2007, walking in shows for Marc Jacobs and Polo Ralph Lauren, among others. In 2007, she was featured on British Vogue as a "new star," and in 2008 Style.com listed her as one of the top 10 newcomers.

Dunn has modelled for Burberry, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Victoria's Secret, Topshop, Jaeger, Gap, Shiatzy Chen, Benetton, H&M, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

In July 2008, she appeared on the cover of the Italian Vogue issue devoted entirely to black models. She has also been featured on the cover of American, British and Teen Vogue as well as covering i-D, Pop, Sunday Times Style, Luella magazine, ASOS.com magazine and French Elle. She has appeared in editorials for American, Italian, Russian, French, Japanese, British and Teen Vogue, French Elle, i-D, Dazed & Confused, W, and V. In Teen Vogue's November 2009 issue on which she appears alongside Chanel Iman, she discusses her and Chanel's previous competitive relationship in the accompanying article.

Queenie Chan is a Chinese-Australian Original English-Language comic artist who co-wrote and illustrated the graphic novel In Odd We Trust, a prequel to Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas, and published by Del Rey. She illustrated the sequel, Odd Is On Our Side, and is illustrating The Boy's Book of Positive Quotations for Fairview Press.

She originally lived in Hong Kong, but in 1986, she and her family moved to Australia. Through her childhood, she was interested in reading manga and also read Chinese-translated versions of Shonen Jump as well as popular American cartoon strips such as Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes.

She attended Meriden High School before graduating and enrolling at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to study computer programming, but in mid-1998, she was inspired to write and draw her own manga stories after reading Rurouni Kenshin.

Queenie Chan started publishing her own web comics before she considered submitting her work to Tokyopop in 2005, where she successfully published her three volume series The Dreaming.