Hometown

Q: Where are you from? A: I grew up in Da Nang, in central Vietnam. It's a coastal city — about an hour and a half south of Hue by train, if that's a useful reference point. It's changed quite significantly since I was a child; it's considerably more developed now and much more of a tourist destination. Q: What do you like most about your hometown? A: The beach is the obvious answer, and it is genuinely one of the better ones in Vietnam — but more specifically what I like is that the city hasn't lost its neighbourhood feel despite growing quite quickly. There are still street markets and local coffee shops that have been there for decades, running alongside the newer hotels and restaurants. That combination is harder to find as cities develop. Q: Has it changed much in recent years? A: Dramatically. The skyline looks completely different from when I was a teenager. There are several high-rise hotel zones now that simply didn't exist, and the airport has been expanded twice. The traffic has also become significantly worse, which is both expected and unfortunate. Some of it has improved things, some of it I'm more ambivalent about. Q: Would you like to live there again in the future? A: Probably yes, at some point. I think I appreciate it more from a distance than I did when I lived there. There's something about knowing a place well enough that you know where to go and what to avoid that makes it much more liveable.