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Episode details

World Service,03 Aug 2016,49 mins

I Hid my Mum in my Harvard Dorm

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Available for over a year

As a teenager Chatri Sityodtong's family lost all its money in Thailand. But Chatri won a place at Harvard University, and took his homeless Mum to live with him in his dorm room. He set out on a business career that has seen him sell his Silicon Valley start-up company for millions. Now aged 45, his latest venture is a mixed martial arts tournament which is televised across Asia, called the One Championship. In the iconic Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City you can pay to get an electric shock from one of the 'toqueros', or electric shock vendors, who have been offering this service for decades. Revellers often compete to see who can take the strongest shocks by holding on to the metal handles of the portable shock machines. The award-winning novelist Hisham Matar spent most of his childhood in hiding from the Libyan authorities. When he was 19, his father, Jaballa, who was an outspoken critic of the Gaddafi regime, was kidnapped and put into prison in Libya. Hisham never saw him again. Now he has written a memoir reliving that time and describing how it has felt to search for his father for over 25 years. (Photo: Chatri Sityodtong. Credit: One Championship)

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