Sophia Liu Interview: From “Teenage Psychic” to Advocate for Equality in Sport (2024)

Original video: *Taiwan History*: The Extraordinary Life of Medium “Teenage Psychic” Sophia Liu

Format: Biographical documentary　Interviewees: Sophia Liu, family and friends, and collaborators　Broadcast date: March 3, 2024

This is a biographical record organized according to the program's structure; it does not rewrite documentary editing as a fictional question-and-answer session. The original automated transcript contains evident errors in personal names, pronouns, organization names, and baseball terminology. This article consistently uses “Sophia Liu” and summarizes the material through the program's images, context, and information that can be confirmed, excluding uncertain details.

The mediumship experiences in the program are personal narratives offered by Sophia and other interviewees. This article focuses on how those experiences affected her choices of identity and how she later redirected her life toward baseball, social work, and public action—not on proving supernatural phenomena.

1. Highlights of the Biographical Record

• Sophia says she perceived “unseen beings” in childhood and served for years as a medium at a temple from high school through university.
• The identity of a student medium consumed substantial time, forcing her to hide part of herself and bear pressures involving sleep, relationships, and responsibility.
• Education in social work, religious exploration, karate, and baseball helped her redirect attention toward real life and personal choice.
• After an unfair decision in a children's game, she applied to become a baseball umpire and faced bias involving equipment, opportunities, and evaluation in a male-dominated environment.
• Writing and screen adaptations made the story of the “Teenage Psychic” widely known. She later converted that visibility into resources for equality in sport and support for disadvantaged children.

2. 00:00–09:00 | A Childhood Accompanied by “Unseen Beings”

The documentary begins with *The Teenage Psychic* and the person who inspired it. Sophia calls the presences she saw “unseen beings” and describes their outlines as shadows imprinted on glass. Her mother, family, and friends also relate childhood memories of her speaking to unfamiliar figures, frequently becoming ill, and treating deceased relatives as everyday companions.

Concerned that outsiders might exploit these experiences, her family sought help and tried to conceal the situation. Sophia also recalls childhood peers excluding her for “seeing ghosts.” From that point, she gradually learned to hide the world she believed she perceived while at school.

These accounts come from family memory and personal interpretation; an outside reader cannot verify a supernatural conclusion from them. They do show how a child, because her experiences differed from those of people around her, was forced at an early age to learn secrecy, discernment, and the bearing of pressure.

3. 09:00–21:00 | Student Years Occupied by a “Heavenly Mandate”

After entering high school, Sophia began serving regularly at a temple. The pattern of attending school by day and receiving devotees at night continued into university, leaving less room for bands, sports, and an ordinary student life. On one hand, she confronted believers' deaths, family secrets, and requests for help; on the other, she feared classmates learning that she was a medium.

The documentary's central tension is not “how miraculous the ability was,” but whether a minor truly had space to refuse. When the adults around her invoked a “heavenly mandate” and a duty to help others in demanding that she continue serving, it was difficult to distinguish personal choice, religious obligation, and other people's expectations.

After beginning a social-work degree, she gradually discovered that helping people did not have to take the form of temple consultations. Classes, life among peers, and practical service made her begin asking what kind of life she actually wanted.

4. 21:00–27:00 | Leaving the Temple and Rebuilding Boundaries

After graduating from university, Sophia decided to leave the temple first and try living a life of her own. She continued studying religion and eventually chose Islam. In her account in the program, the boundary that people and Jinn should not interfere with one another offered a more stable framework for handling her earlier experiences.

She does not claim that her perceptions disappeared completely. Instead, she says she stopped intervening actively and could face them more calmly. This is a personal religious change and the establishment of boundaries in life; it should not be generalized as the sole position of all Islamic traditions on Jinn, mediumship, or spiritual experience.

At the same time, karate and baseball pulled her back to a real world in which practice can be repeated and results tested. She quotes a coach's principle: only practice is real. Physical training became an important point of support in finding her way out of confusion.

5. 27:00–33:00 | Claiming a Fair Place on the Baseball Field

Sophia first looked into becoming an umpire because she objected to an unfair ruling in a children's game, and passed the examination in 2006. Entering a male-dominated umpiring community, she faced not only technical requirements but a lack of protective equipment designed for women, fewer officiating opportunities, insulting language, and a tendency to magnify women's mistakes.

After receiving tailored equipment and training support, she continued accumulating experience in games. The program also notes that the entry of female umpires is not merely a question of whether an individual is “persistent enough”; it also depends on whether equipment, selection opportunities, and the working environment are designed fairly.

This baseball thread sharply contrasts with her earlier mediumship: the former emphasizes repeated training, public rules, and testable performance, while the latter revolves around information perceived by only a small number of people.

6. 33:00–39:00 | Writing Her Experiences and *The Teenage Psychic*

After leaving the temple, Sophia began writing about her past. Under the Islamic name “Sophia,” she published works including *The Interpreter of the Spirit World*. Her story later inspired the short film *The Busy Young Psychic* and the series *The Teenage Psychic*. She also worked as a consultant, helping creators understand temple ritual and everyday life.

Screen works expanded her public profile but created a new tension around identity: audiences more readily remembered “the real person behind *The Teenage Psychic*” than the years she had devoted to baseball and social work. The documentary records how she gradually accepted this label, which she could not completely control, and considered whether the attention could be converted into practical action.

7. 39:00–47:38 | Converting Visibility into Public Action

Sophia later used her public influence to advance gender equality in sport, support disadvantaged children, and participate in international sports exchange. With partners in social work, she founded an organization providing sport and educational support to children whose families lacked financial or other resources, while also promoting gender awareness in athletic environments.

This stage continues her youthful wish to “help people,” but the method has changed. Rather than relying on interpretations of an unseen world, she uses organizations, resources, training, and institutional advocacy to address problems that can be seen.

The documentary closes by describing her life as remaining true to her original intention. Read together, the 2017 and 2024 interviews show how the emphasis in her narrative gradually shifts from explaining a spirit world to choosing an identity, establishing boundaries, and turning personal experience into public service.

8. Editorial Note

Sophia Liu carries multiple identities: former medium, Muslim, writer, baseball umpire, and social worker. This series does not treat any one label as the whole person, nor does it use later public achievements to prove her earlier mediumship experiences retrospectively. Keeping videos from different years separate allows readers to compare how she interprets the same past at different stages of life.

Source

• YouTube: *Taiwan History* — The Extraordinary Life of Medium “Teenage Psychic” Sophia Liu