Boonsithi Chokwatana is chairman of Saha Group, Thailand’s leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 2 of a 30-part series.
The Chokwatana family’s history in Thailand began when my grandfather, Li Fook Ho, the eldest son of a farmer in China’s Guangdong Province, moved to Bangkok with his family around 1900. He was one of many overseas Chinese who scattered throughout Asia to escape poverty.
My grandfather was a man of robust health. He worked all kinds of jobs to make ends meet, once even pulling an ice cream cart.
Eventually, he rented a house on Samphen Road in the wholesale district of Yaowarat, which is still the location of Bangkok’s Chinatown today, and got a regular job. In those days, when overseas Chinese workers sent money back home they generally used underground remittances with low fees, rather than banks.
My grandfather’s job was to handle paperwork for these…
