Bryan Au is a raw celebrity chef and ecopreneur who has been enjoying raw foods, living the lifestyle, and promoting it for more than 12 years. He is the author of two versions of Raw In Ten Minutes, and recently completed his latest raw recipe book 5 Star Raw Spa Cuisine with Chef Bryan Au.

Bryan studied under the guidance of Dr. Gabriel Cousins and developed his own raw recipes around Dr. Cousins’ teachings. His delicious raw vegan recipes can be made in ten minutes or less. Bryan also offers a series of Raw Organic Instructional DVD’s and continues to bring raw into the mainstream. His enthusiasm and love of raw is evident. In this interview he speaks about his raw foods beginnings.
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Tags: Bryan Au, Eco Green Chef

The Ezaki family has been creating and innovating confectionary products, including the immensely popular Pocky, since 1922. Their company, Ezaki Glico is currently run by Katsuhisa Ezaki, who has been serving since 1982.

First sold in 1966, Pocky consisted of a biscuit stick coated with chocolate. Simply enough, right? It had sales of ¥30b yen in its first two years (roughly $30.2b USD) and was an instant hit among Japanese teenagers.

Founding Father
After the death of one of his sons, Riichi Ezaki had retreated to a fishing village and noticed a group of very healthy and active children playing. Further investigation yielded the villagers’ high consumption of oysters which contained elevated levels of glycogen.
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Tags: biscuit stick, chocolate, ezaki, pocky, riichi ezaki, treat, yen

Anna May Wong was the most famous Asian American actress of the 1930s. She was born in Los Angeles as a third generation American with her Chinese name, Wong Liu Tsong, meaning “frosted yellow willows.”

An Early Passion
Anna was infatuated with the movies early on and would skip school and use her lunch money to go to movie theaters. Anna, at the age of 9, despite her parent’s opposition, would beg filmmakers for parts, earning herself the nickname “C.C.C.” or “Curious Chinese Child”.

By the age of 11, Anna May had come up with her stage name, Anna May Wong, paying tribute to both her English and family names.
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Tags: " Cultural Warrior, "Curious Chinese Child, Anna May Wong, asian hero, fashion icon, First international Asian American movie star

You know, we often talk about the success stories of our heroes without talking about their pitfalls, their struggles, their hurdles.

Pat Morita,  better known as Mr. Miyagi, from the movie The Karate Kid, taught a generation of young people how to block a punch with  “wax on, wax off” while coaching “Daniel-san” karate and catching flies with chopstick.

Moving on to what you did not know.

Doctors told Pat Morita that he would not be able to walk when he was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis at the age of two. He spent the next nine years, enduring long periods in full body casts, in various Californian hospitals.

It took fusing four vertebrae in Pat’s spine for him to finally learn how to walk again at the age of 11. By this time, in the middle of WWII, his family had been sent to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona.
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Tags: Pat Morita, Wax off: Overcoming spinal tuberculosis, Wax on

Jerry Yang is co-founder and CEO of Yahoo! Inc. He is worth an estimated US$2.3 billion and ranked 524th among the richest people in the world. Mastering the English language in only three years during his high school years, Jerry was soon placed in an AP English class. He went on to Stanford University where he graduated with a B.S. and M.S. degree in electrical engineering.

Jerry has been a leading force in the Internet media industry for as long as anyone can remember. He has built Yahoo! into a destination network of sites that attracts 3.4 billion views per day. Yahoo! remains the world’s most highly trafficked website–beating Google–and is one of the world’s most recognized brands.

Yahoo was originally started in 1994 when Jerry was a PhD student. He jokes, “Really, we’d do anything to keep from working on our theses.”

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Tags: " Jerry Yang, $26bn Yahoo's "Yet Another Highly Officious Oracle, Asian heroes, entrepreneur, Internet icon, technologist, Yahoo's Jerry Yang

Gurbaksh Singh Chahal, known to his friends as “G,” is an award winning American entrepreneur who has created companies worth over $340 million. He is the Founder & CEO of two advertising companies which were sold for over $340 million.

G grew up as a Sikh in California, the religion that requires wearing a turban. He recalls,

Once when I was 10, I went to the local elementary school to play basketball. While I was playing, two kids were saying derogatory things to me. One said, “Come here.” He pulled a knife on me and told me to take my blue turban off.
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Tags: Advertising entrepreneur, asian heroe, BlueLithium, Gurbaksh "G" Singh Chahal, TV personality

Ellison S. Onizuka made the ultimate sacrifice and lost his life in service to his nation and the international space community on January 28, 1986 at 39 years of age.

Ellison was 15 where the Mercury mission put an American astronaut in space for the first time. His mother said,

Ellison always had it in his mind to become an astronaut but was too embarrassed to tell anyone [...] When he was growing up, there were no Asian astronauts, no black astronauts, just white ones. His dream seemed too big.

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Tags: Anything is possible: U.S. Air Force Colonel, Asian heroes, Asian Heroes and Role Models, Astronaut Ellison Onizuka, Ellison Onizuka

Dennis Hwang has seriously got one of the coolest jobs on the planet. This artist designs Google’s logos like the ones here.

Dennis’ first logo was in honor of Bastille Day, July 14, 2000, at the request of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Dennis moved to Korea when he was about five years old and returned to Knoxville to graduate from Bearden High School. He notes,

Actually, much of my ideas and style stem from the time I spent during my childhood in Korea. Whatever challenges the logos bring, I can often rely on the little doodles that I used to do in school when I was young. Something that used to be frowned upon turned out to be my greatest asset.

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Tags: asian heroe, Googler Dennis Hwang, seen hundreds of millions of times each week, World's most famous artist

Maqbool Fida Husain, more popularly known as, M. F. Husain, is India’s most renowned living artist. During a career that has spanned almost 70 years, his richest source of inspiration has been the vast cultural landscape of his native land. According to Forbes magazine, he has been called the “Picasso of India.” Two years ago, one of Husain’s works broke records when it fetched $2 million dollars in a private sale to a London buyer.

As a child, Hussain learned the art of calligraphy and loved to read poetry. After painting countryside landscapes, Hussain decided to move to Mumbai to make his career in art and earned his living by painting billboards for feature films. An award he won at the 1947 exhibition of the Bombay Art Society marked the beginning of a vibrant colorful career for this art maestro.
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Tags: art, art maestro, Asian heroes, Hindu mythology, India’s most renowned living artist, M. F. Husain, Mahabharata, Sanskrit epics of ancient India

Amy Tan began her writing career as a business writer, providing speeches for salesmen and executives at large corporations. She defied her mother by dropping out of pre-med in favor of English and linguistics at San José State University. She received both a bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in those fields.

Her first published story was called “Endgame”, launching her career as a writer of literature. After traveling to China with her mother in 1987, Tan wrote her most famous work, The Joy Luck Club, a novel about mothers and daughters.

The book has been translated in 17 languages, including Chinese and paperback rights sold for $1.23 million.
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Tags: Amy Tan, Artist, Asian heroes, Author, role models, The Joy Luck Club