Cathay - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

• Cathay is mentioned several times by John Blackthorne, the protagonist in James Clavell's novel Shōgun.
• Ezra Pound published a collection of poems entitled Cathay: For the Most Part from the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the Decipherings of the Professors Mori and Ariga, London: Elkin Mathews, 1915.
• Hart Crane mentions Cathay in his poem The Bridge.
• William Shakespeare describes a character as Cataian in his play Twelfth Night.
• Edna St. Vincent Millay mentions Cathay in her poem "To The Not Impossible Him".
• Cathay is the name of a short story by Steven Millhauser in his collection of short stories "in the penny arcade"
• The Suede song "The Power" from the album Dog Man Star includes the line, "through endless Asia / through the fields of Cathay".
• 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon episode "Big Cufflink Caper" of season 4 (1990) features the "Cufflink of Cathay", an explosive of Ancient China, hidden inside a cufflink.
• In Gore Vidal's novel Creation, which takes place between 510–445 BC, Cathay is a pivotal setting.
• In Thomas Costain's novel 'The Black Rose' (1945), Cathay is the destination of the protagonist. Also made into a movie, the novel takes place in the 12 century.
• Robert E. Howard named a China-like civilization Khitai in his Hyborian Age backdrop for Conan the Barbarian.
• In the 2007 Animated Film Sword of the Stranger, the antagonists are a group of Chinese warriors referred to as the Cathay.
• Brian Eno's song "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" wonders, "How does she intend to live when she's in far Cathay?" from his album, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy)
• Mick Jagger plays the fictional Emperor of Cathay in "The Nightingale" (1983) from Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre series.
• In the Doctor Who serial Marco Polo (1964), which is based in 1289, the term "Cathay" is used to refer to what is now China throughout all seven episodes.
• John Brunner's "Times Without Number" takes place in an alternative history where the Spanish Armada won and conquered England and where - among numerous other changes - China is still called "Cathay" in the 20th Century.

In role playing games:

• There are regions named Cathay in the settings of the 7th Sea and Earthdawn role playing games.
• Cathay is a region with Chinese inspirations in the Warhammer Fantasy setting.
• In White Wolf Game Studio's Kindred of the East a popular epithet for an Eastern vampire is "Cathayan".