One Family · Two Worlds · Infinite Love
From the temples of Cambodia to the shores of Hawaiʻi — a story of resilience, devotion, 50+ years of marriage, and a family woven together across continents, cultures, and generations.
A Family Story
Two Cambodian hearts found each other in Philadelphia. Together, they built a life that honors every ancestor, every tradition, and every child who needed a home.
Born in Cambodia, raised in Philadelphia, PA — our family carries the spirit of Angkor Wat in our hearts wherever life takes us. Both our parents and our in-laws remain treasured pillars of our extended family.
Married for over 50 joyful years, our union is a testament to steadfast love, shared faith, and the courage to build something extraordinary together — from Philadelphia to Charlotte to Hawaiʻi.
With 2 biological children (King & Queenie) and countless foster and adopted children and adults, our family is a living demonstration that love is infinite and family is chosen as much as it is born.
Our daughter Queenie made history as the 1st Buddhist Novice Nun of Cambodian direct descent in over 2,600 years — taking her precept at age 9 in Spartanburg County, SC. Her brother King followed as a Novice Monk at age 10.
Founders of AeroFarm Hawaiʻi & Patches of Bamboo — rooted in the Cambodian tradition of stewardship, generosity, and living in harmony with the earth.
In 2024, we planted our roots in the islands — bringing Mom along for the journey, surrounded by the aloha spirit that mirrors the warmth our family has always carried.
Reach out to any member of our family through the links below:
The spirit of welcome, love, and peace — in Hawaiʻi and in every heart we meet.
When we arrived in Hawaiʻi in 2024, we did not simply move — we were welcomed home. The spirit of Aloha — love, peace, compassion, and unity — resonated deeply with the Khmer values we have carried across generations. In Cambodia, we say Soksabay (សុខសប្បាយ) — may you be happy and well. In Hawaiʻi, we say Aloha. The meaning is the same: a recognition of the divine in one another.
Our family's arrival in the islands marked a new chapter — one shaped by ocean breezes, volcanic earth, and the extraordinary diversity of cultures that call Hawaiʻi home. We brought with us our Cambodian traditions, our Buddhist practice, our love of the land, and a fierce dedication to welcoming others as we ourselves have been welcomed.
In both Khmer and Hawaiian tradition, the land is not owned — it is tended. We are its stewards, and it is our teacher.
Through AeroFarm Hawaiʻi and Patches of Bamboo, we honor this calling — cultivating food, cultivating community, and cultivating the next generation's relationship with the living world. We invite neighbors, strangers, and seekers to our table. That is Aloha. That is also Cambodian.
Mom joined us here, crossing the country from Georgia so she could receive the care and closeness she deserves. Watching her breathe the island air, watching her smile in the Hawaiian sun — this, too, is Aloha in action.
Growing food with love and intention — our aeroponic farm brings Cambodian agricultural wisdom into the Hawaiian future. Sustainable, community-rooted, and beautifully alive.
Bamboo is sacred in Southeast Asia — flexible, fast-growing, and deeply useful. Patches of Bamboo honors that lineage while building something new in Hawaiian soil.
From Honolulu's vibrant streets to quiet garden mornings, Hawaiʻi holds us. We are 1st generation Cambodian-Americans now writing the next verse of our story in paradise.
The Valley Isle — a place of breathtaking beauty, deep waters, and sacred winds.
Maui — the Valley Isle — holds a particular magic within our Hawaiian journey. Its haleakalā summit, its road to Hana, its sacred waters and whispering bamboo forests speak directly to something deep in our Cambodian soul: the belief that nature is not backdrop but teacher, not scenery but sanctuary.
In Khmer tradition, water is the source of life and the carrier of merit. The Mekong River shaped our ancestors' world. In Hawaiʻi, the Pacific ocean and Maui's waterfalls hold similar power. We recognize the sacred when we stand before it, regardless of what language we speak or what flag flies nearby.
We dedicate this page to the spirit of Maui — to exploration, to wonder, and to the Hawaiian people whose aloha has made room for our family to flourish here. We carry our history with us and walk forward in gratitude.
"A bamboo forest sways in the wind but never breaks. So too does our family — rooted, resilient, and reaching toward light."
From the shores of Maui we look across the ocean and we remember Cambodia, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Spartanburg, Lowell, Georgia — every place that made us who we are. We are a family of journeys. And every journey has brought us here.
The House of the Sun — where Maui the demigod snared the sun's rays. We see in this legend the same devotion to light that drives our Buddhist practice.
Humpback whales return each winter to Maui's warm waters. Like our family, they travel vast distances and come home. Water remembers where we come from.
The bamboo forest in the Hana rainforest echoes what we know from Cambodia — bamboo as shelter, bamboo as music, bamboo as metaphor for a life well-lived.
Refuge. The Triple Gem. The path our children blazed with courage and devotion.
Saranam — refuge, sanctuary, shelter — is the heart of the Pali chant that marks one's commitment to the Triple Gem: the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. It is the word our daughter spoke when she took her precept. It is the word that changed our family forever.
At the tender age of 8, our daughter Queenie announced she was called to the nun hood — and her older brother King followed without hesitation. As a family, we did not rush. We took a full year to walk this path together, to learn, to ask questions, to sit in stillness with one of the most profound decisions any child — or family — could make.
Shortly after her 9th birthday, in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Queenie took the precept and became the first Buddhist Novice Nun of Cambodian direct descent in over 2,600 years. Her brother King, at age 10, followed her into the robes as a Buddhist Novice Monk.
We bow to our children. They are our teachers. In their courage to listen inward, they reminded us — their parents, their community, the world — that the Dhamma has no minimum age and no nationality. Truth is truth. The path calls those who are ready to hear it.
This page is their page. It belongs to King and Queenie — and to every person who has ever taken a step toward the sacred, regardless of what the world thought of their timing.
First Buddhist Novice Nun of Cambodian direct descent in over 2,600 years. Took her precept at age 9. A soul who knew her path before the world had words for it.
Following his sister with brotherhood and devotion, King took his precept at age 10. The elder who led by following the younger — a beautiful inversion of ordinary expectation.
Buddha · Dhamma · Sangha. The three refuges at the center of Buddhist life. Our family lives in relationship with all three — as practitioners, as community, and as seekers of truth.
Generosity. The first perfection. The practice that makes our family who we are.
Dāna (ទាន) — generosity, gift-giving, selfless offering — is the first of the Ten Perfections (Pāramī) in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition that is the spiritual home of Cambodia. It is not merely charity. It is a way of being. A practice of the heart. A recognition that what we have was never truly ours — and that sharing it is the path to freedom.
Our family has practiced Dāna in every city we have called home. We opened our doors in Philadelphia. We built a household in Charlotte where foster children and adopted children found stability, love, and belonging. We cared for a mother with dementia when the world would have let her disappear into a care facility.
We did not do these things because they were convenient. We did them because they were right. Because Dāna teaches us that generosity is not about abundance — it is about willingness. And our family has always been willing.
"Countless adopted and foster children and adults" — this is not an exaggeration. It is a life's work, freely chosen, joyfully given.
This page honors every child who found our door open. Every adult who needed a place at the table. Every person who received from our family not out of pity but out of love — because in the practice of Dāna, there is no hierarchy between giver and receiver. There is only the gift, and the grace of being present for it.
From our first two adopted boys who came with us from Philadelphia to Charlotte, to countless others — our home has always been a sanctuary. The door is open. It always has been.
When COVID-19 arrived and Mom's dementia worsened, we moved her from Lowell, MA to Georgia to be with us. We then brought her to Hawaiʻi in 2024. Caring for elders is Dāna. It is the deepest kind.
AeroFarm Hawaiʻi and Patches of Bamboo are expressions of Dāna — offering sustenance, beauty, and belonging through the sacred act of growing food for others.
The story of a family who crossed oceans, built homes, and never stopped beginning again.
The Journey
Every chapter a migration. Every migration a homecoming.
Both husband and wife were born in Cambodia, heirs to one of the world's oldest and most extraordinary civilizations — the builders of Angkor Wat, the keepers of the Khmer language, and the inheritors of 2,600 years of Buddhist teaching.
Both raised in Philadelphia — the City of Brotherly Love, a fitting home for two people who would spend their lives opening their hearts and doors to others. It is here their love story began.
Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved to Charlotte with their first two adopted boys — their first set of foster children. A new city. A new family. The same abundant love.
Their two biological children — son King and daughter Queenie — were born in Charlotte, NC, welcomed into the world with the assistance of personal midwives. First-generation American-Born Cambodians (ABC), they carry two worlds within them.
At age 8, Queenie announced her calling to the nun hood. The family spent a full year exploring the Buddhist path together. Shortly after her 9th birthday, Queenie took her precept — becoming the 1st Buddhist Novice Nun of Cambodian direct descent in over 2,600 years. Her brother King followed at age 10 as a Novice Monk.
When the pandemic arrived, Mom — living with dementia alone in Lowell, MA — needed her family. They moved her to Georgia to provide the care and closeness she deserved. No hesitation. No distance too far. This is who they are.
In 2024, the family — husband, wife, and Mom — moved to Hawaiʻi. They founded AeroFarm Hawaiʻi and Patches of Bamboo. They brought their culture, their practices, their generosity, and their love to the islands. They are home.
1st generation Cambodian descent. Parents and in-laws still living in their respective places of residence. A family that spans continents while staying profoundly connected.
AeroFarm Hawaiʻi · Patches of Bamboo. Two businesses rooted in the earth, rooted in community, rooted in the Cambodian ethic of tending what sustains us.
Joyfully married for over half a century. A partnership that has outlasted challenges, crossed borders, raised generations, and never stopped choosing each other.
"O'hana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind — or forgotten."
Our O'hana Life did not begin the day we arrived in Hawaiʻi — it began the day two young Cambodian hearts decided that their love was large enough to hold not just two people, not just two children, but everyone who came knocking.
It began with our first two adopted boys in Charlotte. It continued with our biological children King and Queenie — born in Charlotte, ordained in South Carolina, members of a living Buddhist lineage. It deepened every time a foster child found safety in our home. It expanded every time we opened our table to someone the world had passed by.
And it was renewed when COVID-19 reminded us that family is not a static thing — it is a choice you make again and again. When Mom's dementia left her alone in Lowell, we chose again: we chose her. We moved her to Georgia. Then we brought her with us to Hawaiʻi. She breathes island air now. She sits in our home. That is O'hana.
The Cambodian concept of family extends far beyond the nuclear unit. It includes the ancestors, the elders, the community monks, the neighbors, and the spirit of the land. This is why our O'hana is so large — because we were raised with a Khmer understanding of belonging that has no limit.
Here in Hawaiʻi, we have found that the Hawaiian people share this understanding. ʻOhana extends outward. Aloha is given freely. Food is shared. Stories are told. Children are welcomed at every table. We are Cambodian. We are American. We are Hawaiian at heart. We are O'hana.
Our biological children — first-generation American-Born Cambodians, born in Charlotte, NC with midwife assistance. Novice Monk and Novice Nun. Our greatest teachers.
Countless children and adults have called our home theirs. We do not count them — we hold them. Every name a story. Every face a reminder that love multiplies when given away.
Both our parents and our husband's parents are still alive in their respective residences. Four living grandparents — a blessing beyond measure, a reminder of where we come from and why we carry on.
Mom came with us in 2024. Three generations under the Hawaiian sun. Growing food. Practicing generosity. Living the Dhamma. This is our O'hana Life — rooted, vibrant, and always expanding.
Cambodian and American. Immigrant and native. Buddhist and neighbor. We weave these identities together not as a struggle but as a superpower — the richness of living between worlds.
"Joyfully married" — these are not empty words. They are the marrow of our family's story. Every day a renewal. Every year a gift. Every decade a testament to the power of love as practice.
"Our family is not remarkable because of what we have achieved.
It is remarkable because of who we have loved."