Thursday, June 29, 2006

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Just came back from Ho Chi Minh this afternoon. This is my second time visiting Vietnam. My first and last time there was because of an exhibition in Hanoi. My company has been trying to establish overseas market so that we took up the exhibition and see if we can get some good partners.

However, the whole difficult part of recruiting overseas distributors is nobody wants to commit on a new brand to the market as it requires a lot of investment in terms of money, time and effort to build up a brand. For those distributors, they would rather look for the already established brands or those brands who are serious in entering the market and willing to invest in advertisement to build up the brand name. However, our case isn't like that. The management would not want to invest in big advertising budget unless we can really have some business there. I do understand the rational behind this as well as we do not have a lot of cash and it's very difficult to ensure this investment got real return. So we would need to look for other alternative way in terms of entering the market.

It's actually a dilemma for any markets. Without the investment, it's very difficult to build up any business but it's very difficult to ensure the return of the investment unless we really work on it. Therefore, I start to wonder what would be the result of the whole exercise. Unless I can get some magic formula, I do not see the possibility to start up any market like this, but what's the MAGIC FORMULA? The only way I can think of is to enter the market by ourselves or get serious partner to do some joint venture as nobody would be willing to invest in other people's brand especially a new and small brand.

Anyway, my colleague and I walked around the local market yesterday night after the meetings. To me, I find Vietnam very familiar as it's just like Taiwan when I was a little girl. To be frank, I felt the whole South East Asia is somehow quite similar. It's just at the different stage of development and I myself find it quite easy to adapt to the local environment because of the similarity. I always want to try some local food and experience how local people lives. So I'm always interested in exploring the local street side food. However, this time, I didn't really try it as my colleague might not find it ok. Hopefully, I can try some next time with some guidance from local people. Those road side food just looks much more interesting to me.



Actually, I did try some nice Vietnamese food this time as our local partners bring us around the city these two days, but I only managed to take pictures for the dinner that my colleague and I went for ourselves yesterday night. The famous beef noodle soup. It's really quite nice.


Monday, June 26, 2006

希望的火苗

隻身在外的生活總是會有點孤單
這些年來總以為我已經習慣了寂寞
但其實不然
過去的一整年
我才真正地過了一個人的生活

一個人逛街
一個人買東西
一個人煮菜
一個人吃飯
一個人看電視
一個人發呆

試著努力地工作
試著找事情作
就為填滿那空白無措的時間

我想一年前的我應該不曾想像這樣的生活
雖然有所遺憾
但我不後悔

或許孤單
或許寂寞
或許遺憾
或許無措

但我真的嘗試過
試著全心地去追求我想要的東西

雖然結果還是個未知數
但那希望的火苗還未熄滅
就期望那有心人能在它未熄滅前
前來一同守護

Monday, June 19, 2006

One Week in Singapore

I have been traveling quite a lot this year. So normally, I won't be staying at Singapore for the whole week. This might be one of the very few weeks that I won't be going anywhere as I have send my passport for visa application this morning. So that's to say I can't leave Singapore until I get back my passport. Yap, I'm quite happy about it as I can finally rest and relax a bit more at my sweet home. Besides, I have also decided to try to arrange all my trips during the middle of the week so that I can really rest during weekend. Don't think I can continue without proper resting. So in order to keep myself going further and further, I'm going to really rest from time to time.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Farewell v.s. Gathering


Was back in Taipei last week for Computex. This event has been a small gathering as I got quite a number of friends in this line, too. Besides, this trip was quite special.

First, Michael had his farewell party last Sat as he would be leaving for Harvard for his MBA this coming July. There were quite a number of people because it was the farewell and birthday party for another two friends. It's my first time to visit such a big room in KTV and that place should be able to house 100 people at least I think. It was quite interesting to catch up with quite a number of old friends there though I didn't got chance to enjoy singing.

Besides, I got another small gathering with my close girlfriends finally. We have been at different places because of study or work. Finally, we are all back for a short period of time. Things have changed quite a lot with each of us, be it study, career, or relationship. However, I believe we all have grown up along the way and we would finally got what we want in our lives. Add oil la!!