He was born to the late, Chinese native Son-Bun Lim; and the late, half Chinese-Cambodian Kimly Zhao on June 1, 1952 in Battambang, Cambodia. He was the third-born of seven. In 1979, he escaped the Khmer Rouge to the Koa-I-Dang Holding Center Refugee camp 20km north of Aranyaprathet Thailand where he met his wife Somphat Phongsat. In 1981, they birthed one child together, before fleeing the Cambodian Genocide to the US where they later would have three more children.
