A Chinese traveler, Wang Dayuan, visited the island around 1330 and described the sights he had seen. “Here lived and roamed the infamous “Tan-ma-hsi (Temasek) barbarians,” the Orang Laut of the region. The most striking feature of this description is the statement that “the natives and the Chinese live side by side,” which appears to be the first evidence of a Chinese community in Malaysia.” (Cless, 2) This shows that Singapore's multiculturalism dates back to when the area was just discovered. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the Malay archipelago, composed of Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Singapore, was progressively conquered by European colonial powers, starting with the arrival of the Portuguese. Later, in the 17th century, the Dutch took control of most of the region's ports and established a monopoly on trade within the Malay region.