When I used to live in Hong Kong we have a decent sized yard 1000sq foot and a rock pond. HK is pretty warm and humid being pretty close to the equator and very suitable for orchids. My dad had an outdoor tent with around several hundred orchids in it, all different types. Then he would hang and place catteleyas and vandas on our lychee tree and several other trees and on top of the rock pond. In Kowloon he was known as the 'Orchid King' and local ppl will come to our yard to look at orchids.
Every weekend when my brother and I were play outside; he will work on this orchids and I guess he will just talk about them. When they are in bloom he will bring them in the house for us to enjoy. I remember Oncidium lemon drop was the one he had in bloom with like 200+ flowers. Some weekends we would wake up in the morning and he will take us to Orchid Street, which is a street in HK where people only sell orchid for 3 to 4 blocks; we would walk around, he will buy a cymbidium or two and then we will have dim sum. Then once or twice a year he will take us to plant convention and we would look at plants and flowers.
What stuck out to me always was he said "Slipper orchids are the hardest orchid he had encountered. I have never managed to bloom any of them and most die from rot" And I think it was purely due to environment - Hong Kong is humid with has tons of scattered rain and the droplets get into the crown and they would take a whole week to dry off. He probably just need more air flow honestly.
Anyways, when we moved to the US in 2003, my dad had to sell/give up 95% of his orchid collection. And I think that was super devastating for him because it was a culmination of 15 to 20 years of his life. He only had 10 orchids that survived the transit to US, out of those 10 only 1 survived till today. I don't think mentally he fully recovered from that. Then 2008 - 2010 financial tsunami hit our family really hard and I guess my dad probably had minor depression and just lost touch with his hobby. By 2012, my dad had brain cancer and had a brain tumor taken out and he has completely lot touch of his past interest and hobby; he would buy orchids, but swiftly, in a month or two, stopped taking care of his orchids.
By 2016, I started living on my own, and seeing the poor conditions of my dad's orchids, whatever is left, there are only around 10 total. I decided to take care of them for him. Several Oncidium, Phals, and 2 cymbidiums. I managed to kill all the Cymbidiums, but nursed the oncidiums and phals back. By 2019, I had much larger place, so I started learning about slipper orchids. I bought from Seattleorchid - Paph Barbatum var nigritum, then
Paphiopedilum Ernie Barham (Berenice album x Kolosand 'QF Green Dragon' FCC/AOS),
Paphiopedilum philippinense x Lady Mirabel (Transvaal x stonei),
Paphiopedilum Carolines Hands (moquetteanum x rothschildianum).
These were the 4 I started with in 2019 and 2020. Since then the Paph Philippinese x Lady Mirabel died from crown rot, but the rest has bloomed like 4 times. And I have collected close to 175 plants, around 200 more seedlings, and currently waiting on 2 seed pods.
Whenever a Paph blooms, I will take it to my dad's place and let him borrow it for 2 weeks, before I take them back home. Mostly let him enjoy the flowers and to show him; he had an impact on my hobby.
I think the orchid bug bite me long ago when I was a kid, I just didn't notice until much later in life.
Funny how taste changes over time 
