"Bulldozer" takes charge in South Korea

SEOUL (Reuters) - Lee Myung-bak has been labeled a construction boss gone green, a hero of South Korea's salarymen for his rags-to-riches rise. His foes call him a corrupt tycoon.

On Monday, he takes office as South Korea's president.

Korean TV viewers know Lee's life story from two hit dramas highlighting the business legends who rebuilt the economy out of the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Lee, 66, the first businessman-turned-politician to win the South Korean presidency, was born in poverty. He picked garbage off the streets of Seoul to help pay his way through university.

The man who served a brief stint in prison for opposing the country's then military rulers joined Hyundai Engineering and Construction when it was just an upstart builder scrambling for work.

He earned his bosses' respect by fighting off bandits at a Hyundai construction site in Malaysia.

By the age of 36 he was its chief executive, helping turning it into one of the country's biggest construction companies. He helped lay the asphalt and erect skyscrapers as South Korea surged to become one of Asia's economic tigers.

When he became mayor of Seoul many years later, he tore down some of those structures, calling them mistakes.

With much fanfare, the man nicknamed "the bulldozer" ordered the destruction of an elevated highway running though the heart of Seoul. He had his engineers uncover a stream buried underneath and turn it into a water park.