About Us
Happy Yak Puzzles began long before we ever thought about starting a business. It began in childhood, in small everyday moments—drawing at the table, sitting on the floor with puzzle pieces scattered around, growing up between cultures and learning to belong to both.
We were raised in New York and New Jersey in a Tibetan family, surrounded by language, traditions, and stories from our heritage while growing up in the fast pace of American life. That dual experience shaped how we see the world. It taught us that identity isn’t one thing or another—it’s layered, evolving, and deeply personal.
As a child, puzzles meant more to me than I knew how to explain at the time. I loved the quiet concentration, the patience, and the feeling of being completely absorbed in the process. Piece by piece, an image would emerge, and with it came a sense of calm and accomplishment. Puzzling was one of the first activities that taught me how meaningful stillness could be. Even now, that same feeling of focus and peace is what draws me back to puzzles again and again.
My sister expressed herself in a different way. From an early age, she was constantly drawing, painting, and imagining new worlds. Creativity wasn’t something she had to learn—it was simply part of who she was. Over time, her art grew into a style that blends tradition and modern life, memory and imagination, culture and everyday experience.
Happy Yak Puzzles became the natural meeting point of those two paths—my love of puzzles and her passion for art. But the deeper reason we started this company came from something we both felt growing up.
We didn’t often see Tibetan culture represented in contemporary, everyday spaces. Our stories, aesthetics, and experiences were rarely visible in the objects people interact with daily. Cultural visibility matters—not just for preservation, but for belonging. Seeing your culture represented in thoughtful, modern ways can be powerful. It reminds people that their stories are living, not fading.
We created Happy Yak Puzzles to contribute to that visibility—to create artwork that reflects Tibetan life as it is lived today: rooted in heritage, shaped by movement, and connected to the present.
Our puzzles are meant to be more than images. They are moments of pause in a busy world, invitations to slow down, and small acts of connection—to culture, to art, and to the quiet satisfaction of building something piece by piece.
That feeling, the one I remember from childhood, is still at the heart of everything we make.