A Vietnamese near-centenarian living in New Orleans reminisces on wars he experienced, ideas he held, and countries he saw during the 20th century with the help of the ghost of an old friend: Ho Chi Minh.

In the era following the American Civil War, a man is charged with fulfilling his father’s duty to visit his elderly, dementia-suffering aunt every year on her birthday to give her a pair of tennis shoes. During the visitation, the elderly woman’s confused memories force him to confront painful remembrances of his own.