Born Liu Po-Chun, Sophiyah Liu became a convert to Islam after she stopped working as a spirit medium in temples and started to explore the wider world of religion. A keen baseball fan with a background in social work and religious studies, she has worked as an interpreter for the New York Yankees and the Australian national team. After travelling to the States to attend the Jim Evans and Wendestedt schools of umpiring, she was the first Taiwanese woman to become an international baseball umpire. In 2017, Taiwan Public Television Service collaborated with HBO Asia and Singapore’s InFocus Asia Broadcasting to produce The Teenage Psychic, a coming-of-age tale about a girl who can communicate with spirits. Inspired by Sophiyah Liu’s story, it was the first HBO show produced in Taiwan to be broadcast entirely in Chinese (Mandarin and Hokkien), and has been aired in 23 countries around Asia.