Standing among the rows of fruit and vegetables in Albany's Fruit World, Ronald Chan is quite happy to talk about his size, weight and general state of health.
A small man, he weighs just 60kg. "My cholesterol is 3.2, my sugar level 5.9, my pressure," and he taps his left bicep, "120/70."
I comment he could have been a jockey. He agrees, and admits he likes horses - indeed, he has one, "a good horse, it won the Easter Cup. It's my hobby. Sometimes I relax and I get to see my horse - especially when my horse is winning, and I get a thrill out of it."
At 73, the founder of the 23-shop Fruit World chain of greengrocers is fitter, healthier and younger-looking than many who are 20 years his junior.
"Oh, I'm okay," he says, self-deprecatingly. "I think my job and my mind keeps me fit."
But he admits his doctor is pleased with him, and tells him to keep doing what he's doing - advice he intends to take.
"I never think of retiring. I'm happy - why would I retire?"
What he does do is work hard - very hard. For six mornings a week, he's up for Auckland's produce markets before 4am (3am on three of them), buying fruit and veges for his chain. That, he says, is where he gets all the exercise that keeps him so youthful.
"I run pretty fast, I walk pretty fast at the market. I walk miles every morning."
It's enough to make someone who enjoys quiet reflection and long lie-ins come over all faint, but Chan is used to it - his whole life has been built on hard physical work.
That hard physical work began in 1949 when, at the age of 13, he and his 18-year-old brother flew from China to join their New Zealand-born father (their mother stayed in China, emigrating later). During the four-day plane journey, with stopovers in Manila, Perth and Sydney, he was, he says, as excited as any 13-year-old would be, but won't admit to any apprehension.
His father, whom he describes as "very strict", had a fruit and vege shop in Auckland's Karangahape Rd, and as soon as the two sons arrived he put them to work.
The young Chan was up at 5am every morning to help set up the shop, off to school at 8am, straight back to the shop after 3pm and then worked until 12am or 1am, before starting again.
They were "hard days, hard times", but he glosses over the hardship, refusing to see it as burden on a young teen and instead crediting it with his work ethic and ability to handle long hours.
Chan excuses his still-broken English, calling it "so-so", but says it is that way because he spent only about a year at school in New Zealand before leaving to work fulltime in his father's shop. Within three years of arriving, he and his brother had their own shop, in St Heliers.
Fruit and veges were in his blood, says Chan, despite the long hours that would have put many others off.
"I love this industry, you are born into this industry. When you love this industry it doesn't feel like working, you enjoy it."
In the 1970s Chan and two partners won the contract to run the produce department at the 16-shop 3Guys supermarket chain, but that ended in 1986 when he gave in to his wife's desire for a change and moved to Hong Kong, where he set up a jewellery shop.
It didn't last. As soon as Chan landed in Hong Kong, he wanted to come back to New Zealand, and he spent the next four years persuading his wife that fitting diamond rings on ladies' hands and life among the high-rises just wasn't for him.
Eventually, he made it back and set up the Veggie World chain of shops with a business partner.
Even though that grew to eight shops by 2002, the partnership didn't work, so they agreed to go their separate ways, with Chan taking five of the shops and rebranding them as Fruit World.
Before the year was over, Chan was approached by one of the market traders he saw every day, asking if he would consider opening another shop and franchising it to the trader.
"I said, 'Are you prepared to work hard? If you're prepared to work seven days a week, work for me'."
In the intervening years, he's said the same thing to several more prospective franchisees, and most of them have taken him up on his challenge.
Now Fruit World has 22 shops in Auckland and one in Hamilton; Chan is starting up a smaller franchise of Supa Fruitmart shops, for those who want to run something more akin to the old-fashioned family greengrocery.
But, he says, it's becoming difficult to find more sites for all those waiting for a shop (there are eight or nine names on the waiting list), especially as he has no intention of taking the chain national. It's strictly Auckland, with possibly more Hamilton stores.
The reason for the geographical boundary has to do with his desire for hands-on management.
"If there are any problems, we've got to be able to sort it out ..." You can't do that if they're in Christchurch, he points out.
It easy to understand Chan's desire to be able to drop everything to visit a shop in trouble when you understand the depth of his connection to his franchisees, at least 80 per cent of whom are immigrants who simply want to work hard and make a decent living for their families.
"All my franchisees, they don't have a lot of money, they have to borrow a lot of money to buy fruit shop, they mortgage their house and so on. If they fail, I feel awful, they lose their house, they might lose their marriage, you know how it happens, so really I work very hard to protect them from things like that.
"I feel I should look after them. If anyone comes to me I feel committed to look after them."
There's more than a slight sense of one immigrant made good giving others the chance to do the same - and taking it very personally.
It is, says Chan's partner Charlie Zheng, just the way he is.
It has also led to formal recognition for Chan, first in 2005 when he won the annual Roger Davies Trophy for services to horticulture, and then in this year's Queen's Birthday honours, when he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for his services to business.
Both honours made him "very, very proud", and he sees them as recognition of his work for the community, rather his business success.
When Chan talks of creating 400 jobs for New Zealand, it is not as an indication of how big his chain has become, but of his pride in helping the country, the economy and the people in those jobs.
But he admits, to make it in business and to give to the community the way he has done, you simply have to love what you are doing."You've got to love the industry, whatever you do." The jockey analogy comes up again. "If you don't like riding, and riding again tomorrow, I'm not going to ride, you know what I mean."
Then he changes demeanour, to show excitement. "I want to get on the horse, tomorrow I want to get on the horse again ... see what I mean, the jockey, I think they enjoy what they do, jockeys enjoy the riding - we enjoy the market."
And as long as he so thoroughly enjoys it, he plans to keep doing it.
"It depends on my health, if my health will let me, till I'm 90," he says. "If my health won't let me maybe tomorrow [I'll retire]. If my doctor's say you can't work anymore, that's it."
But we both know, that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
"My doctors say don't worry about your health, keep working."
Ronald Chan's doctors can be pretty confident he will do just that.
Ashley Campbell is a freelance writer and editor. Contact her at www.wordsontheweb.co.nz
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