In this book all transliterated Chinese geographical names, except for widely accepted ones such as Hong Kong and Macao, are given in Hanyu pinyin. For institutions and individuals, the spellings customarily accepted by society at large are preferred. However, it should be noted that English names of many organizations are often not systematic, and the spelling of geographical references may conflict with standard transliterations. If only the Chinese characters of a name are available, it will be transliterated into pinyin using the putonghua pronunciation. Where deemed necessary for clarity in the text, as for example in the case of the name of a Chinese individual in America, transliterations from Cantonese and other dialects, or transliterations other than pinyin, will be shown in parentheses following the pinyin spelling.