Li Ka-shing the richest man in Asia was born in 1928, Chaozhou in China's Guangdong Province to a school-principal father.
In 1940 With the Japanese invading, his father packs up the family and flees to Hong Kong. Dad died from tuberculosis two years later; at 12 Li starts working in a plastic-watch-strap company to support his family. "The great tug of war and the taste of poverty—they are hardly memories one can forget," Li says.
In 1950, Li quits and starts his own business, making plastic toys, later switching to plastic flowers. More than a decade later, riots in Hong Kong depress property values, giving him the opportunity to buy up commercial real estate on the cheap.
In 1972 - Li lists his holding company, Cheung Kong Ltd., in Hong Kong. Investors can't get enough. Really....
