Sixty-year-old Tan Chee Kiong, who was born and brought up in Thailand, still remembered clearly the scene of the Asian tsunami which happened on Dec. 26.

Tan has been engaged in tourism for some 10 years in Thailand and his hotel mainly received guests from Europe and America.

Those who fled from the tidal waves to his hotel were mostly western tourists.

"We provided food and hospitality to the affected people. Many of them have lost everything and only with their swimming suits on," said Tan.

Tan said he has never seen such a thing happening in Thailand before. Luckily, the tsunami came early in the morning as there were not many people on the beach, otherwise, more losses of lives would be resulted. That was seen by Tan as the most fortunate thing in the disaster.

When the medical support team of China arrived at Phuket on Dec.31, they stayed in Tan's hotel and were offered rooms at a very low rate.

"I think it's a time to do my best to help each other rather than to think about making money," said generous Tan.

Tan was glad to see that, in such an adverse situation, people from various units have cooperated well and enabled the relief work to run smoothly.

The Chinese Embassy in Thailand responded very quickly and sentpeople to Phuket immediately on the day the disaster happened.

The relief support team from China's mainland and Hong Kong have paid much attention to providing assistance to those who are in need, and some of them even worked 24 hours a day, told Tan.

According to Tan, the Asian tsunami has caused serious loss of property to Chinese Thais in Thailand, "There were about 1,000 hotels owned by Chinese Thais in the South of Thailand and many of them have been badly damaged."

Hotel owners in the Southern area called a meeting the day after to discuss what to do to help those who suffered serious losses in the disaster to resume their business.

As it has been observed, some of the bars and restaurants in Patong has already re-opened and some said preliminary recovery would be seen within two weeks. However, Tan believed at least half a year would be needed to make everything return to normal.