Present Day Tay Ninh Vietnam
Forty miles from the Cambodian borderThe tall, aged Chinese man exuded an aura that demanded attention and that most people found unsettling. His appearance alone commanded respect; at slightly under six feet in height, with a shaven head and hard, unyielding dark blue eyes his wiry body stood ramrod straight. People often guessed that he was in his seventies, but was actually only sixty-five; this miscalculation was probably owing to the cold, hard nature of his countenance. His domain was a twenty-acre site, a kilometre outside of the village of Tay Ninh. He seemed to glide over the ground rather than walk in his long black gown, a technique he had learned over time and found added to his presence.
His people knew him as the ‘Teacher’, and like all teachers
