Bui Vien Walking Street

This guide to Bui Vien Walking Street follows the government official it's named for, Bui Vien, and the story historians still can't pin down: a mission he supposedly undertook in 1873 to cross the ocean and beg a sitting American president for help against French forces closing in on Tonkin. It traces the conflicting accounts, from which president he met to whether the journey even happened as told, and the emperor who sent him in the first place. It ends with how a street named for a man who may never have crossed an ocean became Saigon's international crossroads.