"It exhausts you," he says. "You sacrifice almost your entire life."

However, as the owner of two popular southwest supermarkets savors the sweet fruit of an undertaking that consumes him, 53-year-old Zhang says he has no regret for the path he has taken.

Struggling through hard times of huge revenue loss and growing pains, Zhang hobbled to walk out of dire straits.

He eventually turned his two Asian grocery stores -- Wel-Farm Supermarket, 4635 Texas 6, and Welcome Food Center, 9180 Bellaire -- into magnets attracting tens of thousands of shoppers from southwest Houston, Missouri City and Sugar Land.

As shoppers flock in and out of Zhang's stores where merchandise labels speak Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai or Hindi, they get a taste of the East lacking in most "mainstream" grocery retailers.

From Zhang's shelves and stands, shoppers, mostly immigrants from Asia, find virtually everything they need to satiate their palate for their homeland flavors: from Gailan -- a Chinese kale, to Wasabi -- a Japanese horseradish paste, and from Bihon -- Filipino rice stick, to Palak Paneer -- Indian curried spinach leaves with cottage cheese.

Many shoppers -- Asians and non-Asians -- come for Zhang's big seller: a large selection of fresh, live seafood displayed in glass tanks, from jumbo lobsters, dungeness crabs to tail-flapping tilapia and crawling, exotic-looking eels.

At meal times, for those weary of cooking, the deli stands that send off the aroma of roast and barbecue have scores of steam-hot Asian dishes and lunch boxes ready to take home. At Wel-Farm, dim sum to-go on weekends is a hit among Cantonese food lovers.

"It's the only grocery store I shop at now," said Rong "Cindy" Tan, a Chinese-American piano instructor from Plantation Creek subdivision in Missouri City. "I can get all the Chinese stuff I need for my family. Our life has been made so much easier since it opened."

Tan said she and her husband shop at the store at least three times a week.

"We had stretched our necks and waited so hard for it to open when we first moved here three years ago," she said. "It's a blessing to have an Asian supermarket here. We used to have to drive all the way to Alief to shop at Welcome Supermarket."

But Tan didn't know Welcome is Wel-Farm's twin, Zhang's first enterprize.

Welcome to Alief
A decade ago Alief's Chinatown was fast becoming Houston's boomtown for Asian-American businesses. But Zhang didn't choose to come here to launch his enterprise. It was a mandate from his father in Canada, said Zhang, who was born in Shanghai and relocated to Los Angeles from Hong Kong in 1984.

Welcome was born from its financially ailing predecessor, George 99 Supermarket, an anchor store at the Diho Square, in 1990. The 30,000-square-foot facility with insufficient supplies was suffering a clientele loss, and the decline was affecting its neighboring businesses, Zhang said.

George 99 was struggling among a host of Asian supermarkets in the neighborhood. A block away, there are Diho Market and Dynasty Super Market. A little farther, Hong Kong Food Market sits at the corner of Gessner and Harwin and Viet Hoa Food Market on Beechnut at Wilcrest.

Zhang's father, who had a share at George 99, commanded him to strike a deal with its owner and purchased the store, Zhang said.

"Over the years, my brother and two sisters had helped our family in many ways, while I was the only one who hadn't made any visible contribution," Zhang said. "I decided to fulfill the patriarchal order and take the responsibility."

With $1 million invested in the deal, Zhang replenished the store's empty shelves and stands with products imported from Asia, expanded the fresh produce and seafood departments, and kicked off an advertising campaign. He befriended the former George 99's employees and assured them the store, renamed Welcome, would turn around under his management. He asked each cashier to keep a notebook in hand to record customers' likes and dislikes.

Houston saw the surge of an influx of Chinese relocating from China in the early 1990s. The immigrants are mostly the families of visiting Chinese students who were granted legal immigrant status under a Unites States government policy following China's crackdown on the student movement in 1989.

Zhang saw it an opportunity to create a new customer base.

However, almost two years had passed before his business showed any sign of recovery.

"It was really tough to carry on George 99's legacy," said Zhang. "People held the old impression about the store. And you have several other Asian supermarkets nearby to compete with you."

With persistence, his strategies eventually worked and shopping traffic began to increase before long.

Zhang didn't expect customers one day would outgrow Welcome's service capacity.

Expanding to Fort Bend
From data on school enrollment, Zhang estimated in Sugar Land alone, there are some 5,000 Asian families. That figure suggested the viability of an Asian supermarket there, he said.

He opened the $2 million, 32,500-square-foot Wel-Farm on a rented property in 1998.

Zhang said he was not deterred by the supermarkets already in place in the vicinity -- a Randalls and a former Alberston's were just across the street and a Kroger was two blocks away. The Alberston's later closed after a competitive H.E.B. opened near it.

"Mine is a unique Asian supermarket whose service to the Asian community couldn't be replaced by these stores," he said.

Wel-Farm's beginning seemed like the reincarnation of Welcome's first years -- only worse, he said.

"Business was dishearteningly sluggish," he said. "I lost more money than I had with Welcome."

Despite the proximity, many Chinese from Fort Bend County shop at Chinatown's supermarkets on weekends when dining out at dozens of Chinese restaurants there or sending their children to Chinese language or art schools in Alief and Sharpstown, he said.

Also, he said he initially overlooked the Filipinos, another growing ethnic group in Ford Bend.

Still it takes time for one to change his shopping habit, switching from a familiar, favorite store to a strange one, he said.

"I anticipated the difficulty," he said. "But I was optimistic about Wel-Farm's potential. More and more Asians are moving to Sugar Land for its excellent residential environment and the high-quality schools. Asians are big on education."

After almost three years of struggle, Wel-Farm is finding success. The store enjoyed an encouraging revenue surplus last year for the first time, Zhang said.

The cost of success has been trying for Zhang.

"I'm here from 9 a.m. till 10:30 p.m. almost seven days a week," he said. "I have no time to watch television or for any entertainment."

He does follow the weather forecast daily, which concerns the supply and prices of vegetables.

While Zhang manages Wel-Farm, his wife Jean Xu looks after Welcome. Their 13-year-old daughter Grace Zhang, an eighth-grader of First Colony Middle School, spends her after-school hours at Wel-Farm after Zhang picks her up from school, since neither he nor Xu has time to drive her home. She does her home work and plays computer games in one of her father's Wel-Farm office rooms upstairs reserved for her.

"I hope Grace will forgive us for neglecting her," Zhang said. "I haven't even been able to take her to her piano teacher for her lessons for three weeks now."

However, the young Zhang can't miss any art class as local artist Xinsheng Wang uses a room upstairs for a studio to teach students that include her.

The elder Zhang revealed art was his own childhood dream.

"I was never interested in business," he said. "I had always wanted to learn to paint. Now I hope my daughter can fulfill a dream that never came true for myself."

Looking at two large murals painted by Wang for Wel-Farm, Zhang sighed and smiled.

"But I can be proud to present my own `school report card' to my father now if he were still alive," Zhang said.