History lessons and modern transportation

When it comes to History in school, people nowadays often think of it as a boring subject and students often refuse to study. I was born in the 8x generation and the History lessons in my time were similar, each lesson was often filled with numbers and events to remember. Almost all of my classmates tried to remember and then forget. However, there was one lesson that I could not forget until now. That was the lesson about Nguyen Truong To's plan to modernize the country to King Tu Duc and the lesson about Japan's Meiji Restoration. Both historical events took place at almost the same time around the mid-19th century. My classmates all wished that at that time, King Tu Duc had listened to the reformer Nguyen Truong To to modernize the country, how wonderful it would have been.

Then the student in me grew up, exposed to the world with a wealth of information and knowledge from the Internet. The Internet is a great invention of mankind, completely changing the way society operates. It is hard to imagine how a modern society could operate without the Internet. Then I learned another lesson from history, this time not from textbooks but from the Internet. In the 90s of the 20th century, the pioneers of the Vietnamese telecommunications industry realized that the Internet was an important invention of mankind. They made efforts to bring the Internet to our country when not many people in Vietnam knew what it was. Not stopping there, at the time when Vietnam faced a drastic demand for innovation in communication technology, they had to face a vital choice: continue to use analogue technology or go straight to digital technology from the West.

As an article said about the former General Director of the General Department of Posts Dang Van Than, "Cooperating with Western capitalist countries, the decision to use fiber optic cables instead of copper cables at that time was unimaginable, unrealistic, and even had many opinions that were stereotypical in terms of viewpoints." They bravely chose to use fiber optic technology for Vietnam. And I know, that is a good lesson. Vietnam is now one of the leading countries in terms of internet speed and has the highest Internet penetration rate in the world. Many other countries are struggling to upgrade to fiber optic cables, but we have had fiber optic Internet for nearly 20 years.

Those two historical lessons are deeply imprinted in my mind and when I work, I always ask myself, which direction will my decisions take? Following the recent events that are being widely debated throughout the country about whether to build a high-speed railway for Vietnam, I think of those two lessons again. The decision on high-speed railway is extremely important for Vietnam. It can cost 50-100 billion dollars and have a profound impact on the national economy for hundreds of years. Vietnam can become poor or rich because of the transport infrastructure. Many questions automatically arise in my mind, such as why does Vietnam need high-speed railway? What will Vietnam's traffic be like in 100 years? What modern transport technology does Vietnam have? What new technology can Vietnam choose? Similar questions keep repeating in my mind and I have to find a way to answer them for myself.

Currently, the world's most prominent transportation technology is self-driving car technology. Many technology companies in the world have begun testing self-driving cars in real environments. It is expected that by 2030, self-driving cars will become popular in the world. And one thing is certain, self-driving car technology will be the main means of transportation in the 21st - 22nd century. Vietnam's choice now is almost similar to choosing analog technology with fiber optic technology in the past, but its influence is much deeper and wider. Should we choose self-driving car technology to design the national transportation system? Or should we still seek to develop railway transportation, an invention of the 16th century that has passed its peak in the 19th - 20th century? Self-driving car technology requires a large highway network and it will operate to every corner of the country. Self-driving trucks can transport goods from North to South at the same cost or cheaper than railways. We are starting to develop expressways. If we continue to invest heavily in expressways, we will be able to apply the best transportation technology for the future. However, Vietnam's transportation pioneers will still be the ones to decide.

I love history, the lessons and stories of history always fascinate me. There are very sad historical stories and very good lessons, I always find ways to learn and develop myself from those stories and lessons. I am just an engineer, not a politician, but I think, in any position, we have to make choices. History lessons are always the best reference for decisions for the future.