MYPT Part 2 - A Day in Manulife Phú Mỹ Hưng

After an exciting first day in Ho Chi Minh City, all of us are went to sleep early for the main event of the trip - our visit to Manulife HCM HQ at Phú Mỹ Hưng. I woke up at 645am (probably my body clock thinking that it's already 745am Singapore time)... After washing up, went upstairs where the hotel's dining area is at. Again, I'm quite impressed at how it was set up, we had a good aerial unblocked view of HCMC. They have simple breakfast menu but it was good.

After breakfast, we waited for our driver from Manulife office to bring us to the office. Our driver, Mr Hoa arrived was on time. We began our journey in the Manulife van.

After travelling for about 20 minutes, the roads started to become wider and there were lesser motorcycles. There were plenty of land around but with huge office buildings. Mr Hoa explained that this is District 7, a new section of the city with less than 20 years history. In a way, it felt like Singapore's business parks.

The difference is that the buildings are much bigger and there's more space in between them. Soon, we arrived at Manulife Plaza. When we got there, we were given an orientation of the Manulife office. We took the opportunity to pose and take photos around the Manulife office.

Steve posing in front of the Plaza	Angie taking out form for CY to sign
Is this their Sales Builder?	Collections Dept - Lucky S'pore has GIRO

When it was time, my colleagues and I were led into a large agency room where we were warmly welcomed by the agency members. The meeting began with an introduction by one of the Senior Division Manager in Manulife Phú Mỹ Hưng (PMH) Agency. The session was conducted in Vietnamese. None of us had any idea what she was saying but we clapped along. It was only until a translator came to help us translate the greetings. Soon after, Mr Chow Wing Kee, Chief Operating Officer of Manulife Vietnam came to greet us. After all the greetings were over, we were invited to give a short presentation. Angie and Ryan impressed our Vietnamese colleagues through their sharings on enthusiasm and how they achieved their goals.

After our presentation was over, Manulife PMH Agency had 3 very successful FPs to share with us their success stories in the business.

Despite presenting to us through a translator, I was able to feel the enthusiasm in their speech. It was very obvious why they are so successful in the business given the level of conviction and commitment they put in to serve their clients.

The first speaker, Nguyen Thi Thuy Duy (bottom left) achieved top 3 rookie last year in HCMC. She was successful because of her attitude towards servicing clients well especially "orphan clients". Despite being very young (21years old?) in a country where age seniority determines level of respect, her success is an inspiration to me to follow her footsteps in servicing clients well. One can never be too young or too old to perform your best.... (reminds me of recent conversations with a friend on topic of "心", "no heart... no matter how easy also won't do, got heart.. it doesn't matter how difficult, how far.. will still do")

The 2nd speaker, Nguyen Anh Tuan (top center) is a 50year old former theatre director. When he came on, he was full of energy and praised Ryan's speech. He achieved top 16th position in SEA last year. The one idea I learnt from him is (after translation) "In life, one has to give first before getting anything in return". I feel this philosophy applies to our lives as well - sow the seeds, harvest the returns. Again, service was emphasized in his speech.

Finally, Phung Trong Toan (bottom right), a Senior Division Manager (2002-2007 MDRT Achiever) gave an inspiring speech on enthusiasm and having clear goals. I keep hearing him mention "muk piu" (sounds abit cantonese... as it means goal). He shared on the need to write down the goal, see it daily and remember so that we will commit to achieve the set objective.

The meeting concluded with Q&As for both sides as well as a group photo taking session.

Agnes presenting a token of appreciation to our hosts

Then it was time for lunch. We were treated to a very nice lunch at Nam An Restaurant. Had a good spread of Vietnamese dishes. We were able to taste almost all of the famous Vietnamese food at this restaurant. After lunch, we returned back to Manulife Plaza again where our team did our key activity - the Mid Year Planning for the rest of the afternoon.

As the saying goes - "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"..... we went to celebrate dinner at KFC... and ice-cream for desert. :D

Happily enjoying the spread

A nice collage of guessing the "special" icecream mix

MYPT Part 1 - First Day in Ho Chi Minh City

On June 1st, I went to Ho Chi Minh City with my colleagues for our Mid Year Planning Trip (MYPT). We took a Tiger Airways flight and started our journey by checking in at Changi Budget Terminal at 530am. The queue was very long - didn't expect that it would be such a full flight for such an awkward timing. Most of us were very tired as we didn't get much sleep night the night before. The flight there lasted 2 hours. Due to the time difference, we gained 1 hour and arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport at 830am.

On exiting the plane and entering the airport through the bridge, I felt like we're still in Changi Airport. The facility looks very new, clean and well maintained. Clearing customs and immigration was quite hassle free despite the scary uniformed officers. I celebrated my entry into Vietnam due to my bad experience trying to enter Penang with an expired visa previously.

Coming out of the terminal, it was very spacious... kinda reminds me of the Chennai International Airport as the taxis were all at the side waiting. The difference is that the there were not as many taxi drivers touting their services. One taxi driver tried to pose as "Mai Linh" despite his taxi logo being different. We hesitated to board the taxi until we saw a Toyota Innova taxi labelled with Airport Services (forgot the exact words). Asked an airport staff and took the cab for USD10 to our hotel. I was quite surprised with the driver seat on the left side as this was my first experience. We were quite happy that all of us could fit into 1 taxi - saved us cost and trouble of finding another taxi.

Entering the city, I had a sense of nostalgia..... the city looked and felt so much like Chennai except that it's very clean and "autos" were replaced with "ninjas on motorcycles" (most were wearing face masks). Along the way, we saw lion dances celebrating the opening of a new shop. This was the first hint for me of the influence of Chinese culture in Vietnam. The 2nd hint was almost every shop we went to, there was an altar for what I assume to be "tu di gong" as it was placed on the floor.

Reaching our hotel - Saigon Mini Hotel 5 in District 1, we were all quite surprised as we had no idea our hotel was so "small". However, the interior exceeded my expectations. I am quite satisfied with the stay there except for the poor airconditioning. Nonetheless, it is great value for $$ - helpful staff, very central location and free wi-fi access.

After checking in, we took a taxi out (another Toyota Innova... seems like this is their favourite car) to Nhà hàng Ngon restaurant.

Pond in Restaurant	Enjoying my phở gà

The restaurant looked very posh and expensive. We had our first meal of phở with gỏi cuốn and lime soda.

After lunch, we began our sight seeing trip around Ho Chi Minh City starting with Notre-Dame Cathedral and then the General Post Office building next to it. We went to more places including the newly opened Hard Rock Cafe inside Intercontinental Hotel, Reunification Palace and so on.

Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is bustling so much traffic that we were initially very lost on how to cross the road. It took quite some time to find out the strategy to cross "safely". There aren't that many cars but with so many motorcycles around, it is very quite challenging. Nonetheless, being in a group does provide abit of safety. We wrapped up the sight-seeing with shopping at Bến Thành Market. It's amazing at the amount of effort required to negotiate and the amount one can slash. We bought fresh Blue Mountain coffees from the market! mmmm~~ (I failed in my task to avoid coffee... haha.. how can I resist such a wonderful taste!)

Finally, we wrapped up our day with dinner at Pho2000 which is famous for hosting Bill Clinton back in 1995. It had been quite an eventful Day 1 in Vietnam. Part 2 will come up soon.