SEOUL, South Korea — As a child, Lee Myung-bak once survived by eating grain residue from a brewery, and had nothing but water to fill his empty stomach at school lunch breaks.

The farmhand’s son later rose from office worker to the heights of South Korean industry as CEO of the Hyundai Group, a story known as the “salaryman legend.” On Wednesday, Lee wrote the latest chapter of his success tale, winning the presidency on his 66th birthday by the biggest margin in South Korean history — 48.7% of the vote. Liberal Chung Dong-young was a distant second with 26.2%.

Lee earned the landslide victory on a wave of discontent with President Roh Moo-hyun, whom many believe bungled the economy and dragged down the country’s rapid growth. Lee has promised to raise annual growth to 7% and lift South Korea to among the world’s top seven economies.

His rise to power was expected to herald closer ties with the U.S. and a more critical view of relations with communist North Korea, which has been lavished with aid by Roh’s administration.

There is no shortage of rags-to-riches stories in this Asian nation that transformed itself after the 1950-53 Korean War. But what makes Lee different is just how far he has climbed.

Lee was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1941. His family returned to their homeland empty-handed after the end of Japanese colonial rule on the Korean peninsula in 1945. The overloaded ship they traveled on sank with all their belongings, though the passengers were rescued, Lee wrote in his autobiography “There is No Myth.”

American bombs claimed the lives of Lee’s two siblings during the Korean War. His family, then living in the port city of Pohang, was so poor they ate spent grains from a liquor distillery for breakfast and dinner. It reddened Lee’s face and he reeked of alcohol at school, leading his teachers to suspect he was a drunken delinquent. Lee had to peddle cheap snacks and ice cream on the streets in his teens.