back from vietnam

i had a very fruitful trip in vietnam! i got to visit many companies ranging from textile companies like fenix, which is actually the company behind Anteprima and the manufacturer of zara, kenzo, H&M and many other brands. i also visited the tiger beer brewery and saw the huge HUGE fermentation containers and the very hip tiger den (a pub built within the company for employees to relax and drink beer). And i also met the managing director of Vietnam's largest textile companies and learnt many lessons from the experts. I visited Phu My Hung, a property estate company, and VSIP which is a Singapore and Vietnam joint venture. It was indeed very insightful and i learnt that when investors are deciding on a country to invest, there are 4 main factors that they would consider: 1)Cost (whether the wages are low) 2)Political Stability (eg. no one would wanna invest in india or thailand right now) 3)People (whether the people are easy to train, is there language barrier, are the ppl educated?) 4)Tax

Also, i managed to learn a very useful tip from the managing director of one of the firms, that is whenever a company goes into an investment, he should always ask himself 3 questions:

1) What is your back up plan?
2) What is your exit plan?
3) What is your back up plan to your exit plan?

Very interesting and witty right?

I also learnt a very interesting fact about Vietnam too, do you know that 60% of their population are below the age of 30?? Yes, they're a very young nation and that's probably one of the factors that investors take in account when deciding to invest in Vietnam. I also learnt that the tax rate in Vietnam is around 25% (higher than Singapore).

Other than visiting the companies, we did a bit of shopping at the ben thanh market(day market) and the night market. All in all, i felt the people in Vietnam wasn't as friendly as people in thailand in a way that they can be quite nasty when you bargain with them. Especially in the day market. But as for the students in Vietnam, they were very friendly and hospitable and you could sense that they really wanted to find a spouse from other countries like Singapore cause when i went to UHHS, a univeristy in Vietnam, they emphasized so much on their r/s status during their introduction that i almost felt i was in some SDU seminar. lolx. I recall a weird student who even said "I play with myself and you girls are welcome to play with me anytime" or something along this line. omg. i practically fainted. I also met a cute pretty gal called Lan, who seemed like a rich Vietnamese because she had iphone and was from some international school. I also met a cute looking guy whom i can never seem to remember how to pronunce his name. But i was very happy when he wanted to take a photo with me. haha. i am totally gloating with a super inflated ego right now. There was also a student called Van, with the most powerful voice i've heard so far and who's a part time pub singer. I think i enjoyed the university exchange the most during the trip. We went to a pub called Acoustic after the university visit and went completely wild and danced the night away(even though it is a pub and people, by right, should be sitting down and listening to music rather than dancing,lolx).

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There's so much things to share but i'll leave it till when i've uploaded the pictures so i can describe to you every place that i've visited!

In the meantime, here's some pictures from my bdae celebration with my sis on the 26th nov!

I went to pietrasantra and portsdown road with my sis to celebrate my bdae. We took lotsa photos and even trespassed someone's property to jump on someone's trampoline. lolx. we honestly didn't know it wasn't public property until an angmoh kid rode his bicycle past us and told us that it was his friend's trampoline. omg. the embarrassment!

I had fusion italian food there.i order some spinach pasta with white wine sauce. it was fragrant and delicious, definitely worth the 19bucks i paid for it. my sis had some pork ribs penne with tomato sauce, it was not too bad as well. the chefs there are all angmohs and the service is really good cause the chefs make an effort to talk to the customers and ask how'd we find the food. The people who frequent there are mostly caucasians and the rich tai tai i think, at least they looked like they were rich. bt honestly, the food isn't TOO expensive and students like us could still visit there on special occasions like christmas or bdaes. though it is highly recommended that you book in advance.