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Published on December 17, 2007

They would be surprised.

This unassuming mogul says he generally buys the family groceries, prefer-ably from Tesco Lotus because it's near home (though as an environ-mentally concerned person he could be expected to favour Tesco's energy-saving policy), and on days when he has no dinner appointment or doesn't eat in the office, he usually goes to food stalls.

A bowl of noodles does him.

When his children visited from Canada he got them three sweet-stewed palo eggs and some tofu for Bt20 from the market when they were peckish.

He was not shy about this when we interviewed him. It was a sensible way

to live, he said, and with elections coming up a good way to sound out public opinion on who people thought would win and how people lived.

Kan heaved a sigh when he reflected on the dire consequences of the economic slowdown to the public, brought home to him by replies to his simple "How are you today?" - sure to elicit a vendor's tale of

woe, to the extent that sometimes it took him a long time to get home with his purchases.

Who says top executives have no time to spare for people who would seem to be irrelevant to their business?

achara_d@nationgroup.com