1. Please tell me about your hometown.
I was born in Khanh Hoa province, the central province, and also the Eastern tip (cực Đông) of Vietnam. I had lived in my hometown throughout my childhood until I went to university in another province.
Khanh Hoa is famous for the coastal city of Nha Trang, a beautiful attraction for both domestic and international tourists. (du khách trong nước và quốc tế)
25 kilometres to the west of NhaTrang lies my small peaceful village in a large valley with green fields spreading to the mountain foot. My childhood there was filled with cool wind slightly carrying the smell of the beloved mud (bùn) that nurtures the paddy fields, (nuôi những ruộng lúa) and offers the hardworking farmer bumper crops. (vụ mùa bội thu)
I spent 18 years living in that tranquil (yên bình) environment, which I later recognized to be a wonderful time for me to develop my personality throughout the formative years. (những năm hình thành tính cách).
2. What do you like about your hometown?
There are so many things and so much comfort I like about Khanh Hoa, among which the beautiful scenery and the clement climate (khí hậu ôn hòa) are worth mentioning most. Indeed, Khanh Hoa was gifted with a long coastline forming many beautiful bays such as Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Van Phong bays. Proudly speaking, Nha trang bay is a member of the club of the most beautiful bays in the world. Besides the geographical beauty, my hometown is endowed with (được ban tặng) the mild weather (thời tiết ôn hòa) nearly the whole year round which allows local people to have a comfortable life. There are hardly ever any serious floods or droughts occurring in this dream land. You can seldom hear of any storm directly hitting Khanh Hoa in recent years. To sum up, Khanh Hoa is really a peaceful and favourable place to reside. (định cư)
3. What has changed in your hometown in the last 10 or 20 years?
It changed very rapidly in the last 2 decades. A typical change can be easily seen is in my village, a farming valley in Khanh Hoa. In fact, 20 years ago, my village was full of cottages with grass roofs and clay walls. Almost all of my neighbours grew crops for a living (kiếm sống bằng trồng trọt nông nghiệp) which was made unstable by the weather, land and mainly trading conditions. As I remembered, there was only one TV set in the village at that time, and bicycles were also a scarce commodity (hàng hiếm) However, life turned around (thay đổi hoàn toàn) when the industrial zone was set up in the village, creating hundreds of jobs for the villagers who had only known hard farm work before. Income was increased when people became workers in factories. This led to the rise of concrete houses with red tile roofs (mái ngói), increasing motorbike ownership, regardless of the availability of fridges, telephones or TV sets and other amenities (tiện ích) in almost every household. Till now, my generation starts to own cars instead of two-wheel carriers. In short, the last 2 decades has witnessed a tremendous movement (bước chuyển lớn) of my hometown on the way up to a prosperous life. (cuộc sống thịnh vượng)
