Voxcali

Jiro Ono has been crafting sushi for over seven decades and remains passionate about perfecting each and every piece.

This is Jiro Ono. He’s 99 years old and is known to be one of the greatest sushi chefs in the world. For decades, he has dedicated his life to perfecting one thing — the perfect sushi bite.

Ono was born in 1925 in a small Japanese town, now known as Hamamatsu, and by the age of seven his parents sent him off to work. He worked at a local restaurant before moving to Tokyo to study sushi making as an apprentice. After working and learning from the bottom up for years, Ono had finally felt confident to run his own kitchen.

In 1965 he opened Sukiyabashi Jiro in a Tokyo subway station which was small and intimate with seating fit for only 10 people. The restaurant offered a 20 course omakase style dinner with Jiro Ono preparing and serving each dish.

His pursuit of perfection made him into a walking, living legend as Sukiyabashi Jiro is the first sushi restaurant in the world to earn three Michelin stars. Reservations are constantly booked and celebrities and notable politicians make sure to get their names on Ono’s list. Former President Obama dined at Sukiyabashi Jiro in April 2014 and called it the best sushi he’s ever had.

In 2011 the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi was released and the world got to see who Jiro Ono truly is. In the film we learn how detail oriented Ono is, whether it involves noticing if a customer is left or right handed or knowing how long an octopus has been massaged for.

Ono was 93 years old in 2019 when he was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the “Oldest head chef of a three Michelin star restaurant”.

At 99 years old, Ono has two sons who have been learning the art of sushi making from their father for years. Yoshikazu Ono has taken over day-to-day operations at Sukiyabashi Jiro and the younger son Takashi manages his own Michelin-starred restaurant which is an identical version of his fathers’.

Jiro Ono works alongside his son at Sukiyabashi Jiro still passing down his knowledge and techniques. He believes there is always room for improvement and perfection can never be achieved but that’s the exact mentality that drives him. Even after years of being behind a sushi counter, Ono still crafts each piece with the utmost care because for him the beauty of sushi is in the endless chase for perfection.

Alex Lee became California’s youngest Assemblymember in 2020, and is focused on legislation to address the state’s housing crisis.

Since 2020, when he became California’s youngest ever Assembly member at age 25, Alex Lee has bet his political career on solving the state’s housing crisis.

California’s housing shortage of nearly four million units has led to a 94% surge over the past decade in the median home price to $909,000.  The affordability problem is exacerbated by a widening income to home-price gap.

Tackling this situation has driven Lee’s activism and policy initiatives.  He has been a vocal critic of housing crisis profiteering and introduced legislation to curb the influence of large corporations and investors who together own one in five California homes.

Lee’s proposed bills, AB 2584 and AB 1240, seek to limit the ability of these entities to purchase single-family homes and convert them into rentals.

He also supported AB 835 to fast-track home construction by changing the building code to allow single-stairway apartment buildings over three stories.

Beyond the hurdles posed by red tape and construction permits in adding housing units, Lee has kept a wary eye on investment vultures, saying, “As we produce more housing, we don’t want the market to be eliminated or narrowed because of those corporate actors.”

His signature AB 11, known as the Social Housing Act, represents Lee’s commitment to creating publicly owned, mixed-income housing to increase affordability and stability for residents.

Lee has also championed consumer protections and food security while protesting Trump’s immigration crackdown. Lee, now 30, was born in San Jose and graduated high school in 2013 in neighboring Milpitas which has a 74% Asian population.  In 2017 he earned a bachelor of arts in political science and communications from the University of California, Davis. Lee’s parents immigrated from Hong Kong.

These 5 private schools aren’t just known as academic powerhouses, but also have some of the highest Asian student populations in the United States. 

Here are the top 5 private universities in the U.S. with the highest percentage of Asian students.

Number 5: The University of Southern California

With strong programs in business and film, USC holds deep ties to the community and the large Asian population in SoCal makes it a cultural fit with 25% of undergraduates identifying as Asian. 

Number 4: Rice University

Known for its prominent STEM programs and excellent faculty, Rice University is located in Houston, Texas where AAPI visibility is growing and Asian students make up for 29% of the campus’ population. 

Number 3: Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh comes in at number 3 on this list with 32% of undergraduates being of Asian descent. CMU is a global leader in computer science and robotics so for tech involved students this school is the perfect choice. 

Number 2: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A 4.7% acceptance rate did not stop MIT’s applicants with 34% of undergrads being Asian. Being this list’s runner up, MIT is the biggest attraction for innovation captivating top-performing students internationally. 

Number 1: California Institute of Technology 

With nearly 44% of undergraduates being Asian, CalTech is insanely selective and is known for its intense focus on science and research. As a top 10 university in the entire nation, CalTech is a strong choice for those looking for collaborative culture and global prestige.

What began as a humble Taipei oil shop has become a family-run restaurant chain selling enough luxe dumplings to approach a half billion dollars a year.  

Din Tai Fung started off as a small oil retail shop in Taipei and is now a leading dining force in the U.S. bringing in over $411 million in total sales annually. Let’s take a look at how this soup-dumpling sensation is taking over the nation. 

Bing-Yi Yang and his wife Pen-Mei Lai opened up Din Tai Fung as a cooking oil business in 1958 while tinned cooking oil became very in demand. When oil sales collapsed in the 1970s, the couple decided to make xiaolongbao in order to keep up with their shop. 

Xiaolongbao was a common dish in Shanghai, but it was rare to find in Taiwan. This allowed the couple to capitalize off the soup dumplings and it eventually grew to be so popular that they stopped selling oil completely and converted it into a restaurant in 1972.

After receiving recognition from the New York Times, Din Tai Fung’s first international location opened in Tokyo in 1996 and in 2000, the first North American location was set up in Arcadia, California. 

Today Din Tai Fung has over 170 locations across 13 countries. In the United States, there are currently 16 outlets which includes a stronghold location in Midtown Manhattan that spans over 25,000 square feet and produces over 10,000 dumplings every day. 

Over the past few years Din Tai Fung has blown up on the West Coast where most of the company's U.S. restaurants are located. Influencers shared their must-have menu items and had Din Tai Fung’s reservations fully booked for months. So if you are thinking about doing a walk-in then be prepared for a lengthy wait time. 

With Din Tai Fung’s check average being about $45 a person, the company achieved an AUV (average unit volume) of roughly $27.4 million per restaurant in 2024 which was the highest in the entire restaurant industry. 

To put this number into comparison, it is almost double competitor Mastro’s Steakhouse’s AUV and one Din Tai Fung restaurant is racking in as much as nearly four Chick-fil-As. 

As each dumpling is folded 18 times, the company’s success stems from consistency and quality. Founder Bing-Yi Yang passed away in March 2023 and left a restaurant legacy to his grandsons who are now co-CEOs. The brothers are Cornell hospitality grads managing 21 different locations in the United States and Canada continuing their grandfather’s meticulously maintained standards. 

The journey behind Din Tai Fung’s empire proves that precision and passion can turn a classic dish into a total global phenomenon and as long as those 18 folds keep popping out of their kitchens, I think it is safe to say that the xiaolongbao reign is far from over. 

Using beautiful textures and crystal-covered couture, these Asian celebrities stopped everyone in their tracks with their red carpet looks. 

Here are our Top 5 Red Carpet looks from this year so far.   

Number 5: Henry Golding

The ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ star attended the 2025 Met Gala in a luxurious custom Ozwald Boateng suit with a gold Cartier watch to complete the look which was perfectly coordinated with the Superfine: Tailoring Black Style theme.  

Number 4: Liu Wen

Supermodel Liu Wen was also on theme at the 2025 Met Gala with a velvet Burberry suit that mixed texture and bold color with effortless tailoring. 

Number 3: Anoushka Shankar

With a custom Dior gown, Anoushka Shankar shined at the 2025 Grammys with classic elegance and modern architecture. 

Number 2: Anna Sawai

The ‘Shogun’ actress stunned at the 2025 SAG Awards in an Armani Privé gown decorated with crystals, paired with Cartier diamonds and Louboutin sandals. 

Number 1: Elaine Zhong

Topping our list is Elaine Zhong’s custom Zuhair Murad look at the Sina Weibo Movie Night Awards in an unbelievably intricate embroidered gown.

With the union of falsettos and lo-fi melodies Keshi has captivated millions worldwide.

Keshi is a Vietnamese American singer, songwriter, and producer whose textural R&B sound tends to blend distant falsetto vocals with lo-fi elements.

An international tour for his 2024 album Requiem covered 35 cities including 8 in Asia, and Keshi headlined Madison Square Garden in July 2025.

Both his two studio albums achieved notable success on the US Billboard 200, with Gabriel peaking at 16 and Requiem landing in the top thirty in 2024.

Critical acclaim for Gabriel helped Keshi achieve recognition as the Top New Artist Debut of 2022.

The 7.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify have pushed Keshi’s two most streamed songs — “Limbo” and “Understand”, both from Gabriel — past 300 million plays and were certified gold.

Keshi’s most played YouTube videos include the pop-R&B 2021 single “Beside You” with 51 million views and a live acoustic version of his 2020 hit “Drunk” with over 46 million views.  His most viewed music video is for “Soft Spot” from Requiem.

Keshi has also built up an impressive audience on social media platforms with 2.7 million Instagram followers and 1.4 million TikTok followers.

Keshi began building his fanbase in 2017 with the release of his first single “Over You” on SoundCloud.

YouTube tutorials helped the autodidact produce and release his first EP The Reaper in 2018.

Before dedicating himself full-time to music Keshi worked as an oncology nurse at the Texas Medical Center.  In 2019 with his first label-backed EP Skeletons about to be released he handed in his resignation letter after a particularly bad day at work.

Now 30, Keshi grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, a Houston suburb with a 39% Asian American population. The stage name Keshi is a derivation of Casey Thai Luong’s first name as mispronunced by his Japanese fiancée’s parents.

Georgia Tech professor Shimeng Yu’s work on semiconductors and integrated circuits makes AI hardware faster, smarter and more efficient.

Groundbreaking research on semiconductor devices and integrated circuits has showcased Dr. Shimeng Yu’s expertise in emerging non-volatile memories for AI hardware utilized in applications like deep learning accelerators, in-memory computing, 3D integration, and hardware security.  His work on probabilistic learning ecosystems won Intel’s Outstanding Researcher Award in 2023.

Yu has developed a roadmap for creating specialized AI chips that perform complex tasks like facial recognition and voice commands with much greater efficiency in his 2018 review “Neuro-inspired computing with emerging nonvolatile memories”.  That efficiency is due to Yu’s technique for processing visual data at the point of capture rather than through a separate processor, leading to faster response times and significant energy savings.

His 2019 publication “Optoelectronic Resistive Random Access Memory for Neuromorphic Vision Sensors” has been applied in the development of computer vision systems for autonomous vehicles and smart surveillance cameras. 

Yu’s research at Georgia Tech’s Laboratory for Emerging Devices and Circuits, where he is a full professor, is supported by the National Science Foundation among other organizations.  In large part due to the commercial potential of Yu’s work, in 2023 the Electrical and Computer Engineering college received a record $81.3 million in sponsored research funding.

Yu’s Google Scholar publications have been cited over 35,000 times. 

A China native Yu earned his bachelor’s degree in microelectronics from Peking University in 2009.  He moved to California to earn his master of sciences and PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University, respectively, in 2011 and 2013.  Before joining Georgia Tech in 2018 he had been an assistant professor at Arizona State University since 2013. Since August 2024 Dr. Yu has held the Georgia Tech Dean’s Professorship.

After a stunning record-setting performance and two hefty bonuses, Steven Nguyen is quickly becoming UFC’s next must-watch fighter.

Steven Nguyen is an MMA fighter known for his aggressive striking style that incorporates many karate kicks and spinning techniques, earning him the nickname “The Ninja.”

In July Nguyen secured his first UFC victory with a TKO over Mohammad Yahya after a doctor stopped the fight at the end of the second round.  Throughout the 10-minute bout Nguyen landed an impressive 108 strikes with 92 categorized as significant, resulting in a gruesome eye injury for Yahya.  The Vietnamese American set a UFC record for knockdowns in a single fight by flooring his opponent six times, including five in the first round. The dominant showing earned him a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” bonus.

He also earned a $50,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus in his March 2024 UFC debut against Jarno Errens, despite losing by unanimous decision.

Nguyen secured a UFC contract following a TKO victory over AJ Cunningham in September 2023 on Dana White’s Contender Series – his third appearance on the promotional reality show. He has a professional record of 10 wins and 2 losses.

At 5’11” Nguyen fights in the featherweight division, requiring him to cut 25-30 pounds over a couple months to make weight at 145 pounds.

The 32-year-old began his martial arts journey at an early age, training in Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Nguyen forged his parents’ signatures to participate in his first fight at 15 in which he beat a 21-year-old. The Wichita, Kansas native grew up in what he describes as a “traditional Asian family” with relatives in respected professions, including a sister who is a doctor. Nguyen wrestled all four years at Heights High School winning a state title in 2011. Today he fights out of Dallas, Texas training with Fortis MMA.

Two college friends with an inspiring start up story are shaking up the way we fuel our brains.

Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen are the most interesting entrepreneur duo in the caffeine game. They are the co-founders of Neuro and they are taking their brand everywhere from Amazon to Whole Foods to TikTok.

The pair met while studying at UC San Diego. Yoshimura was a neuroscience graduate while Chen studied economics and chemistry. They bonded over their common lifestyle that involved academics and martial arts.

In 2009, the two developed an even stronger friendship after Chen was involved in a snowboarding accident, which left him paralyzed, but that doesn’t stop him from being adventurous.

During rehab after the accident, Yoshimura stuck by Chen’s side and in 2013 they were inspired to develop a functional caffeinated gum that could act as an alternative to energy drinks and coffee.

They began experimenting with vitamins and supplements before launching in 2015 on Indiegogo, a crowdfunding platform, where they raised $20,000 in just a few days. Their concept was Neurogum. A gum infused with caffeine, L-theanine, and B-vitamins that will help keep you focused and energized.

Over the next few years, Yoshimura and Chen focused on perfecting the formula to optimize taste and effectiveness and packaging to create an aesthetically pleasing look.

By 2018 Neurogum was found on shelves at places like CVS Pharmacy and Vitamin Shoppe. The brand saw major spikes in sales on Neurogum.com and Amazon after influencer shoutouts created social media buzz.

At this time Yoshimura and Chen released NeuroMints which had a similar formula and by the end of 2019 Neuro hit $3.5 million in annual revenue.

The duo appeared on season 11 of Shark Tank where they asked for $750k for 5% equity in Neuro. In the end, they did not accept any of the shark’s offers and chose to maintain full control of their vision. While they did not get a deal, Neuro received exceptional brand awareness as orders began to increase online immediately after the episode was aired.

After the Shark Tank momentum, Yoshimura and Chen began to drop new flavors such as peppermint and cinnamon and expanded into more stores like Target and 7-Eleven. In 2022, Neuro became a top-selling brand on TikTok Shop and its virality pushed the brand to hit monthly revenues of $10 million.

Today Neuro can be found in over 10,000 retail stores and on JetBlue flights. The duo continues to expand their brand by developing other functional products like Sleep and Calm mints. As of 2025 Neuro has an estimated value of over $60 million and Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen have turned their personal journey into a national brand.

With millions of consistent sales and a growing product line, Neuro has changed the caffeine experience for everyone making energy more convenient than ever.

People are ditching the night clubs to hit karaoke bars for affordable drinks, chaotic singing, and memorable moments. 

Americans are moving their shower concerts to the bars because karaoke nightlife is booming in the United States. 

The popular activity originated in Japan during the 1970s when Daisuke Inoue developed the very first karaoke machine. He called it the 8 Juke. The term ‘karaoke’ is a blend of the Japanese words “kara” which means empty and “okesutora” which means orchestra. 

The 8 Juke won over bars all around Japan and gave people the chance to live out their performing dreams and also created a different way for music lovers to bond. 

In 1999, Inoue was named one of Time Magazine’s “Most Influential Asians of the Century” and in 2004, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Flash forward to today and Inoue’s legacy is more prominent than ever as karaoke is being revived all over the U.S. especially in big cities. Asian style karaoke bars are going viral on TikTok and people are running to book a private room for their next birthday party. 

These karaoke bars have everything you need to have a great night out, LED lighting, drinks, food, and privacy for your group. 

In Los Angeles, Koreatown is the karaoke capital. Pharaoh Karaoke Lounge is a fan favorite and is known for their large rooms, glamorous themed decor, and up-to-date song selection. 

Cleveland, Ohio has the highest number of karaoke bars per person in the U.S. and GalaxyKTV on 30th Street is a very stylish choice with its stunning private rooms and total club like atmosphere. 

Philadelphia holds the highest number of karaoke night events per year in the U.S. Muta Korean BBQ and Karaoke is a North Philly gem because nothing beats a yummy meal and singing your heart out in front of your friends. 

A good karaoke night is not about perfection. Karaoke bars and lounges create a judgement free zone for anyone who wants to test their confidence under the glowing lights. Whether you can actually hit every note or if you just completely butcher the lyrics, karaoke is all about having a good time, getting together with loved ones and letting the music take over.