Nguyễn Mỹ Hà

As city planners draw up a great master plan to shape the future of our beloved capital, Hà Nội, we citizens can try to imagine how our children's children will live in 100 years' time. 

I, for one, hope that Hà Nội will retain its beauty. By beauty, I mean the tree-lined boulevards and streets shaded by natural canopies, small community parks and gardens with benches for people to sit on, tables to play chess at, and plenty of equipment for public exercise.

The current lakes will still be full of clear water and birds making their nests around them. I hope natural orchids will flourish on the trees, and in spring they will burst into beautiful blooms, the result of community residents taking turns to care for them.

From the point of view of an average citizen, I hope that everyone will have access to drinkable water from their taps, and swimmable water in the rivers and lakes. 

As parents, we hope that children will have enough time outside school to play, make music, take part in sports and carry out creative projects. 

Every young person should get to learn a craft alongside pursuing higher education, whether at university or postgraduate level. Workshops on housekeeping and running small businesses should be available to anyone who needs them. Young families should receive support from a government fund to start their own households, and children could even go to school for free. 

In an ideal future, the elderly would offer lessons to younger people. But if more welfare is provided to children and the elderly, it means that those who are working will likely have to work harder, pay more taxes and retire much later. Nothing comes for free, even welfare. 

At the moment, the Vietnamese family often functions with three generations living under one roof. But if houses can be designed in a way that better caters to the needs of a family, then they would reflect the motto of living close to your children, not right on top of each other.

As we talk about future life, city friends say they were born and raised in cities, and they cannot see themselves living in the countryside.

But they must be more realistic. Whether you live in a city or the countryside, you're likely to spend two-thirds of your time working online in the future. And while cities can create stress, the country can actually cure it, and calm you down. 

There may be more of a trend towards leaving cities like Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City for a quieter, better quality of life in smaller towns or coastal cities. When people work online more, or seek new places to make digital content, the allure of less well-known locations will rise.

I recently visited the home of a Hanoian couple who sold their home in the capital to move south to Nha Trang, bringing with them a 90-year-old bedridden mother. It was a decision many saw as risky, because they would now live far from the city, and the closest hospital would be at least a 40-minute drive away.

"When I speak to my Hanoian friends, they say they need to live close to a hospital, in case any sudden health complications arise," said the wife. "But when you already live in a healthy atmosphere, you eat well, and exercise well, the risk of getting sick is lower."

Since the move, the wife's mother is doing much better and does not take as many medicines each day.

"In the morning we go to the beach and buy fresh fish directly from the boats every day. We have meat once or twice a week, grow our own vegetables, and have a tennis court nearby. We can go for an hour's walk along the beach, or more if we want," the wife said.

Since the family moved, they say they have met others from the capital, like people from the Giảng Võ or Cầu Giấy wards, who have also moved away to Nha Trang.  

Either way, life is too short to foresee such a long-term plan clearly. Even if we live in the same place where we were born, things around us change so much, for better or worse. 

The past will always glow in some way, but look forward and you'll see that life is still worth living. Life will steer you along a course either way, and you'll just adapt to it. VNS