I’m sure most of our savvy readers know that the fortune cookie is an Asian American invention, not an Asian one. But there are other Asian American inventions that you probably weren’t aware were Asian American. Here are five of them:

1) PLAY-DOH

In 1957, Joseph McVicker, the son of a soap and cleaning product manufacturer, decided to help his sister-in-law (a nursery school teacher) find an alternative to the conventional clay which was too hard for her young students to play with. Enter Dr. Tin Liu, a self-described Chinese American “Confucian philosopher and practical scientist,” who was hired by McVicker to come up with a solution. The job sounded simple enough, but Liu soon found the problem to be “as big as the Pacific Ocean.” However, after much trial and error, the good doctor developed a soft, reusable clay that had just the right consistency and texture for young hands (and even smelled good). Play-Doh was born. And to this day, it remains one of the most popular toys on the market.

2) NECTARINE

Two Korean immigrants, Kim Hyung-soon and Kim Ho, made their way to California via the Hawaiian plantations in 1913 with one goal: “To become the first millionaires in the Korean (American) community.” The two soon founded the Kim Brothers Co., a fruit wholesale business, but eventually also expanded into orchards, nurseries and fruit-packing sheds. Their experiments breeding fruit led to the crossing of a peach with a plum and a new fruit called the nectarine was the result of the pairing. They also developed new breeds of peaches including the “fuzzless” Le Grand/Sun Grand and revolutionized the agricultural industry in the process.

3) USB

Anyone who uses computers (i.e. everyone reading this), has most likely also used the Universal Serial Bus technology a.k.a. the USB. And for that you have to thank Indian American computer architect Ajay V. Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB. But that’s not the only technology Bhatt’s beautiful mind has unleashed on the world. He holds ten U.S. patents for his creations including the Accelerated Graphics Port, PCI Express and a bunch of other fancy-sounding computer thingies I’m clueless about, but if they play any part in delivering porn to my computer, well, then God bless you, sir! Bhatt’s “rock star” status in the geek community was cemented by this 2009 Intel commercial:

4) DEEP FOCUS CINEMATOGRAPHY

In film, deep focus photography involves the cinematographer stopping the lens down and flooding the set with lights so “that elements in both the foreground and background remain in sharp focus.” This technique is a standard part of our cinematic vernacular now, but in the early days of the movies, deep focus was almost impossible to achieve because the film stock wasn’t sensitive enough. That is until Gregg Toland shot the 1941 classic Citizen Kane, employing the then-revolutionary technique and being heralded as the “inventor” of deep focus photography. The only problem is, Chinese American cinematographer James Wong Howe had already “invented” the same thing ten years earlier in his first sound film Transatlantic. Howe was one of Hollywood’s greatest cameramen with ten Academy Award nominations for his work and two wins. In addition to deep focus, Howe also pioneered other by-now familiar techniques such as the use of low-key lighting, the crab dolly and even donned roller skates to shoot the boxing scenes in Body and Soul with one of the first hand-held cameras. A true pioneer.

5) ARTIFICIAL LIVER

Time Magazine proclaimed the Bio-Artificial Liver 2001’s “Invention of the Year.” An artificial liver designed to allow a damaged liver to keep working until a donor could be found, it has even helped livers to heal on their own in some cases. Prior to this, the liver was considered one of the most complex organs in the body and close to “irreplaceable,” but that didn’t dissuade Japanese American scientist Dr. Kenneth Matsumura of Berkeley’s Alin Foundation from inventing the Bio-Artificial Liver using a secret “ingredient”—live rabbit cells. Considering that many of our readers are soju-loving Koreans, this is one invention we’re definitely happy exists. So let’s drink to that!