Hanyu Pinyin (simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: Hànyǔ Pīnyīn; [pʰín ín]) is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script in the People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Singapore, and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters (汉字 / 漢字, hànzì) into computers.

The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s based on earlier forms of romanization. It was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, where it is generally referred to as the New Phonetic System.

Hànyǔ means the spoken language of the Han people and pinyin literally means "spelled sound" (phonetics).

In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xiji qiji (The Miracle of Western Letters) 西字奇蹟 in Beijing. This was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write a Sinitic language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, issued his Xi ru ermu zi (Aid to the Eyes and Ears of Western Literati) 西儒耳目資 at Hangzhou. Neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese, but implied a first effort which eventually gave origin to pinyin.

Wu Yi (born November 1938 in Wuhan, Hubei, China) was one of four Vice Premiers of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, overseeing the country's economy until March 2008. Known as the "iron lady", Wu is one of the toughest negotiators in China's government.

In April 1962, she joined the Communist Party of China. In August of the same year, she graduated from the Petroleum Refinery department at the Beijing Petroleum Institute, with a degree in petroleum engineering. She spent much of her career as a petroleum technician, eventually becoming deputy manager at the Beijing Dongfang Hong refinery, and assistant manager and party secretary at the Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Corporation.

She was elected deputy mayor of Beijing in 1988, and held that office until 1991. Following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, she persuaded coal workers threatening to go on strike to continue working after some of their colleagues had been killed. From 1991 until 1998, she held successively the posts of Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation, and member of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. A protege of Zhu Rongji, she became a state councillor in 1998, and was appointed Vice Premier of the State Council in March 2003. She was the first woman to hold the position since economic and political reforms in 1978, and the most powerful woman in Chinese politics since Jiang Qing. She helped negotiate the PRC's entry into the World Trade Organization and reorganised the customs service after U.S. complaints over the widespread violation of intellectual property rights.

Aska Yang (traditional Chinese: 楊宗緯; simplified Chinese: 杨宗纬; Tongyong Pinyin: Yáng Zong-Wěi; Hanyu Pinyin: Yáng Zōngwěi) was born on 4 April 1978 in Taoyuan, Taiwan. He is a Taiwanese Mandopop singer. He graduated from the National Changhua University of Education (NCUE), with a major in Guidance & Counseling. During his study at NCUE, he attended singing contests and won some prizes. He is now studying a Master Degree program in the Sports Psychology Department at the National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU).

Aska Yang debut in Taiwan as a contestant on season one of Taiwanese TV singing contest One Million Star. He sang songs such as "再見我的愛人" (Goodbye My Love), "人質" (Hostage), "背叛" (Betrayal), "新不了情" (New Endless Love).

Nevertheless, the final ten contestants, including Yang, had released two compilation albums, Stars Reunion (星光同學會-超級星光大道10強紀念合輯) and Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (愛.星光精選-昨天 今天 明天) in June and October respectively. He recorded a total of four songs in both albums:

Later in the year, he was involved in a tense contract dispute with his manager, Hsu An-chin. Because of the press attention, his name was frequently mentioned in the entertainment news headlines, in a sensational way, throughout the whole year of 2007. For example, he was ranked second in "Person of the Year" by Yahoo!Taiwan and was also listed in a book called "Who’s Who in the ROC, 2007-2008".

Na Ying (Chinese: 那英; pinyin: Nā Yīng, less frequently referred to as Natasha Na, born November 27, 1967) is a Chinese vocalist. She is considered as one of the best present-day female singers in Mainland China, having sold more than 10 million albums. She is also noted for her buoyant and forthright personality.

She was born in Shenyang, Liaoning. She is an ethnic Manchu, said to be of the Yehe Nara clan. Na won several national singing contests in the 1980s, and in 1988 began her recording career in Taiwan and Hong Kong. She released her first album in 1994 called "Dreaming with you". After that she published more successful albums, turning into one of the most loved mandopop artists of Mainland China.

At the 1998 Spring Festival Gala show hosted by CCTV, Na Ying sang a duet "Meet in '98" (相約一九九八) with her friend Faye Wong. Wong had already achieved fame in Hong Kong and elsewhere, but the performance with Na brought her to superstar status in China itself.

Na Ying had a relationship with Chinese footballer Gao Feng and had a son, but the two broke up in 2005. She married Meng Tong in 2006.