Our Story

“I grew up in a Cantonese-speaking immigrant family in Hilo on Hawai’i island. I always wondered why my family referred to Hawai’i in the 1970’s as “the Sandalwood Mountains” (Tan Heung San). I myself had never seen a single sandalwood tree growing up and the mountains were not covered with them as far as I could tell as a keiki. But our house was always filled with the smell of sandalwood incense my mom had purchased from the Kwan Yin temple in Honolulu Chinatown. Was it old sandalwood from the past? Or was it fake sandalwood-perfumed incense? Whatever its source, it was and still is the smell of my childhood home. My mom, often stressed out and anxious, found peace and calm twice a day as she paused to remember and connect with our ancestors at the family altar. On very special holidays, she would actually burn a small stick of real sandalwood instead.

Later I learned about the role of the sandalwood trade between the Chinese from Zhongshan county, where my ancestors are from, and Native Hawaiians and its importance to how the Hawaiian kingdom navigated a tumultuous time in its history as the forces of new diseases and political and economic colonization threatened the Hawaiian way of life. This trade that earlier Chinese merchants facilitated caused the deforestation of sandalwood from its mountains. This project is a humble effort to repair some of that damage.”

--- Yin Ling Leung, Founder and CEO