Cathay large Christian population, while the Jesuits in China had not found any Christians there. In retrospect, the Central Asian Muslim informants' idea of the Ming China being a heavily Christian country may be explained by numerous similarities between Christian and Buddhist ecclesiastical rituals – from having sumptuous statuary and ecclesiastical robes to Gregorian chant – which would make the two religions appear externally similar to a Muslim merchant. This may also have been the genesis of the Prester John myth. To resolve the China-Cathay controversy, the India Jesuits sent a Portuguese lay brother, Bento de Góis on an overland expedition
Đại Cathay fled to Đà Lạt to hide until the end of 1966, when Đại Cathay was arrested by police and sent to Phú Quốc island, in which only then did Anh dare to return to Saigon. Duyên Anh's novel “Điệu ru nước mắt" (Tale of One Teardrop) was based off the life of Đại Cathay, and the novel was later adapted into a film by the same name directed by Lê Hoàng Hoa and was acted by two famous Vietnamese actors at the time Trần Quang and Thanh Nga. Đại Cathay Đại Cathay, whose real name was Lê Văn Đại was