Cathay 1513), they started calling the country by the name used in South and South-East Asia. It was not immediately clear to the Europeans whether this "China" is the same country as "Cathay" known from Marco Polo. Therefore, it would not be uncommon for 16th-century maps to apply the label "China" just to the coastal region already well known to the Europeans (e.g., just Guangdong on Abraham Ortelius' 1570 map), and to place the mysterious Cathay somewhere inland. It was a small group of Jesuits, led by Matteo Ricci who, being able both to travel throughout China and to read, learned
Cathay Building consisted of the Cathay Cinema, a restaurant and the dance hall on the ground floor, as well as a roof garden above the cinema and a residential storey block with a penthouse. The first part of the Cathay Building was opened on 3 October 1939 with the 1,300-seat Cathay Cinema, the dance hall and the Cathay Restaurant. In 1 July 1940, the 11 storey residential block was opened for occupancy, with the owners Mrs Loke Wan and Loke Wan Tho occupied the eleventh floor. The building was the first and tallest skyscraper in Singapore and in Southeast Asia, at a