Burning Monk Monument

Next stop on our cultural tour is in District 3 to see the monument for the Burning Monk. Basically, there was a time period where the current Vietnamese President was Catholic and wanted to wipe out the Buddhists, which at the time 80% of HCM was Buddhist. So, a Buddhist from Hue came down to HCM and set himself on fire in protest. He notified an American journalist before arriving, so the whole thing was captured on camera and became a defining rally against the president who ended up assassinated that same year. In 2010, the Vietnamese government created this monument to recognise this cultural part of history (despite Vietnam currently being a Communist country).Read more