Voxcali

After an abrupt release from the Falcons early this season, veteran kicker Younghoe Koo delivered a perfect performance in his debut with the New York Giants.

After a tumultuous start to his 8th season veteran kicker Younghoe Koo has gained a starting role with a new team, the New York Giants.  Koo’s debut with the Giants was a welcome sight going 2-for-2 on both field goals and extra points after stepping in for the injured Graham Gano.

Coming off a disappointing 2024 season with a career-worst 74% success rate, Koo faced significant pressure this year, including a preseason kicking competition with the Falcons.  He won the job, but his time in Atlanta ended after going 2-for-3 on field goals – including a late-game miss in Week 1’s 3-point loss to the Buccaneers. 

Just four days later Koo was signed to the Giants’ practice squad.

His recent struggles contrasts with the solid 86% career success rate earned through 183 career field goals.  In 2020, Koo’s best season, he led the league with 144 points on 37 field goals.   That 95% consistency was good enough to earn him Pro Bowl honors.

This isn’t the first time Koo’s career hit a rocky patch.  As a Groza Award finalist at Georgia Southern, Koo went undrafted in 2017 before signing with the Chargers only to be cut 4 weeks into the season.

Unable to play in the NFL Koo joined the upstart league Alliance of American Football with the Atlanta Legends in 2019.  He managed a perfect 14 for 14 with the team before AAF declared bankruptcy midseason.  But Koo parlayed his AAF success into a practice squad position with the Patriots before being released, only to be acquired by the Falcons in October.

While at Georgia Southern Koo made a school record 88.6% of his field goals and went 19 of 20 his senior season.  In his junior year he went viral by hitting a trick shot, complete with backflip.

Koo was born in Seoul and played soccer as a kid.  He moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey at 12 to live with his mother, a nurse, while his father stayed in Korea to continue his professorship.  At Ridgewood High Koo was more than a kicker — he tallied 4 interceptions to earn MVP honors his senior year.

Sunday will mark his first home game with the Giants at MetLife Stadium, just 13 miles from where he grew up.

Zhang Weili a.k.a. “Magnum” vacated her strawweight belt to pursue a second championship in the flyweight division against Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 322.

MMA fighter Zhang Weili aka “Magnum” became the first Chinese champion in UFC history in 2019 after her TKO of Jéssica Andrade.  The dethroning of Andrade took only 42 seconds through a rapid series of landed punches and knees.  The electric Strawweight bout earned Zhang her first of four Performance of the Night bonuses.

Now 36 years old, 12 years into her professional career, Zhang has compiled a mixed martial arts record of 26 wins and 3 losses.  11 of Zhang’s wins have been by knockout, 8 by submission, and 7 by decision.

Zhang’s impressive array of skills were on display in June 2022 at UFC 275 in a rematch with Joanna Jędrzejczyk when she earned a Performance of the Night bonus with a spinning backfist knockout.   Her first bout against Jędrzejczyk in 2020 was deemed Fight of the Night after Zhang won by split decision.   It is widely considered one of the greatest women’s fights of all time.

As two-time UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Zhang has defended her title four times.  Her most recent title defense came in February against Tatiana Suarez in UFC 312.  The fight went the distance in a unanimous decision for Zhang.   The performance earned Zhang over $1.7 million in total compensation.

Zhang vacated her strawweight title on October 25th to challenge Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC Women's Flyweight Championship at UFC 322 in NYC’s Madison Square Garden on November 15.  The UFC women's flyweight division is capped at 125 pounds, 10 pounds higher than the strawweight division.   Zhang’s bold move infused women’s MMA with excitement as Zhang and Shevchenko rank number one and two in the UFC women's pound-for-pound rankings.   The likely outcome is deemed a tossup, and betting lines are essentially a “pick ‘em.”

Born in Handan, China, Zhang’s martial arts journey began at a young age with Shaolin Kung Fu and later Sanda, Tai Chi, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Shuai Jiao.   Her well-rounded, aggressive fighting style and masterful grappling techniques are evident in wins by rear-naked choke, armbar, and guillotine choke. 

Zhang’s appeal extends beyond the octagon.  She has received brand deals with Estée Lauder, Under Armour and Monster Energy, and made her acting debut in the 2025 feature film After Typhoon.

Director Alex Woo and Producer Tim Hahn sit down with GoldSea to chat about AAPI representation, imagination, and wacky conspiracy theories in their new animated comedy feature"In Your Dreams" hitting Netflix on November 14.

Romen Borsellino:

Hi, I am Romen Borsellino with Gold Sea Media.

Alex Woo:

Hey, Romen. Hi. To meet you.

Romen Borsellino:

Hey, nice to meet both of you too. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Alex Woo:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Romen Borsellino:

Of course I saw the movie, I loved it. It was funny, it was beautiful, it was heartfelt. From the moment the very squeaky pacifiers hit the ground at the beginning, I was like, I'm in for a ride here.

Alex Woo:

Awesome. I'm so glad you liked it.

Romen Borsellino:

So I'm with Gold Sea Media. We're an AAPI Daily. So the first thing, of course, I want to know is about your guys' own AAPI identities and how that might have influenced the making of this film.

Alex Woo:

Yeah. You want to start?

Tim Hahn:

Well, I'm Korean American, born and raised in LA, and then moved up to the Bay where I met Alex.

Alex Woo:

I'm Chinese American. I grew up half my life in Minnesota and half my life in Hong Kong. Yeah, the influence of, I think my sort of Asian and ethnic heritage has a lot to do with like, I think the cultural heritage of being Asian, being Asian American, having a lot of pressure put on me to be perfect.

And that's very much what this film is about and what it explores. I feel like not just in the Asian and American community, but I think just at large in America, there is so much pressure on people, especially kids to be perfect, to make their dreams come true. And I think at some level, that's healthy because it's what makes America so exceptional as a country and as a culture.

But there's a dark side to it, because I think people can get lost in that pursuit of perfection and lost in that dream about the pursuit of those dreams. And you can kind of neglect every other aspect of your life. And the other dark side is when you don't achieve your dreams, you feel like something's wrong with you, that you failed and that you're not living life to its fullest. And I just don't think that's true. So with this film, I really tried to sort of flip the charge on dreams and nightmares.

With nightmares, I think a lot of times the things that have happened in my life that have shaped me the most and helped me grow the most and actually strengthen the bonds of all my relationships is when I'm, my life seems like it's at its worst. I'm in the lowest moment of life. 

And, you know, my friends, my family, they come out and they help me get through that messiness and that imperfection. And so I think nightmares have a really positive function in life. And so I, yeah what I tried to do with this one was really flip the charge on those two concepts and those two ideas.

Romen Borsellino:

I appreciate that. That is very thoughtful. Tim, did you want to weigh in on that? Not that you have to, but

Tim Hahn:

I think I mirror those sentiments definitely. I think, you know, it's not true for all Asian American families, but I think for me, in my own experience, definitely there was a, I identify with Stevie as a fixer, as a perfectionist. I love that shot in the beginning with the one B+ on the report card and it's like, fix this, you know? And I think not necessarily directly tied to my Asian American heritage.

I appreciate also the subtle story within the film around like the parents choosing between kind of following your dreams and maybe being more practical. Because that's definitely, you know, conversations I've had with my parents in pursuing this career that I've chosen. So I think that's another example of how our backgrounds are kind of part of the environment of this film.

Romen Borsellino:

Totally. Well, I am a younger sibling, so I definitely identified more with Elliot.

Alex Woo:

Well you definitely have Elliot’s hair. 

Tim Hahn:

Alex and I are both olders and we're both definitely.

Romen Borsellino:

Yeah, I don't know that I left any baloney on the floor, but I'm sure there were moments where my older brother would have wondered, given the opportunity to make it just me and the parents, I should take that one. But I'm sure, you know, I'm sure he would have done the right thing in the end. I mean, you know, on that topic of identity, it's interesting because at first, you know, I heard about the movie and it was like, it stars Simu Liu and you guys are involved an a part of me was like, "great, this new Asian movie is coming out."

And then, you didn't jam any identity down anyone's throats. And even in asking the question about identity, I felt admittedly a little hesitant because, you know, I'm not necessarily gonna go into an interview with other filmmakers, Ron Howard and Spielberg, and immediately ask them about identity. 

Do you guys, how do you feel about that sort of push and pull of wanting to represent your identity, also just wanting to make a film and not having to give a darn about, you know, lifting up an entire community or whatever responsibility that might come with?

Alex Woo:

Yeah, I mean, it was very deliberate.I  mean, think we, obviously representation is really important to both of us, but I think there's different types of representation and there's some that a lot of films, the characters that are featured, their issues are about their identity and their otherness and finding their place in that world. And I love those stories and I think there's a place for those stories.

I also think that there's a place for stories where it features minority characters and that that's not what their life is about. I think that oftentimes that can just be kind of narrowing for characters of a certain ethnic background that the only stories we can tell with them is about their ethnic identity and their heritage. And I just think for me as you know growing up, because I spent half my life in Asia and half my life in the States. I didn't always think about my ethnic identity. It wasn't at the forefront of my mind, it wasn't always the main issue I was dealing with. And so for this film, I really wanted, you know, to deal with the more universal theme of like imperfection and imperfect people and imperfect families. And that's a universal thing because nobody is perfect. It doesn't matter what your cultural heritage is. And so I thought that there was something really empowering about featuring characters that, you know, are from a different sort of minority background.

And not making it the issue at the forefront of their lives. If you were to watch a movie about a white American character, there rarely is their issue about their ethnic identity. And so when you do that with a minority character, in a way it's normalizing, it's empowering that there's other aspects to these types of characters other than just who they are ethnically and culturally.

Tim Hahn:

I think it's really about this idea of kind of redefining what is default, right? And I think this family is having an experience that I think many families universally can recognize, see themselves in, get something out of, but also, you know, like that representation as a redefining of what's default, it's just a beautiful way to make it feel more grounded and authentic.

Romen Borsellino:

Well, I appreciate that. I strongly identified with this film, but not necessarily because I'm Asian, but because I'm Midwestern, right? I was like, that knockoff Chuck E. Cheese they're dining at, that cute little house on the street, the dad rocking the Minnesota Viking shirt. was like, this is cut and copied out of my own childhood. Again, not the Indian American part, but the cute little Midwestern town. I'm not surprised that you said you were from Minnesota. I immediately clocked that. I was like, the filmmakers were definitely from the Midwest.

Alex Woo:

Yeah, which part of the Midwest are you from? 

Romen Borsellino:

Des Moines, Iowa.

Alex Woo:

Okay, yeah, I mean, it's very similar to Minnesota.

Romen Borsellino:

And our neighbors to the north, constantly fight over Minnesota versus NICE versus Iowa NICE and who really gets to claim that. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I don't want to hurt your feelings with that.

Alex Woo:

They fight in the nicest way possible.

Romen Borsellino:

“But sorry, we're actually the nicer one.”

Romen Borsellino:

I have something in common with you too, Tim. I went to Amherst College. 

Tim Hahn:

Whoa! No way.

Romen Borsellino:

My freshman roommate was in the same comedy troupe as you, Mr. Gads.

Tim Hahn:

Oh, Mr. Gads.  Nice.

Romen Borsellino

But sorry, back to the topic. 

Tim Hahn:

I would talk about what we do for an hour, but

Romen Borsellino:

You guys founded Kuku Studios. It was the two of you and Stanley Moore, right? You three are the founders.

So, have you made Stanley the token white guy in the office? Like in the way that normally as an AAPI, like we become the tokens, have you put all of that onto him? And is it constantly like this? Like he wasn't invited to this because I wanted to talk to two Asian Americans. Please send my apologies. He did great work

Tim Hahn:

He is like my, he's my go-to polling service.

Alex Woo:

Yeah, no, we think we try not to make them feel bad about being white.

Romen Borsellino:

That’s very kind of you guys.

Alex Woo:

No, we started the company together. Yeah, I mean, we didn't really, again, I didn't think about what our sort of ethnic background was. I tried to find people that I had chemistry with, creative chemistry with, that I really trusted, that I had really good relationships with.  And yeah, mean, you know, who they were ethnically and culturally, wasn't, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a factor.

Tim Hahn:

I mean, on this kind of topic of like representation and the power of diversity and like crafting stories. Something that's kind of fun is I feel like if you draw our hometowns on the map of the US we represent, like he's all the way from like Miami, Florida. I'm from Southern California. You're from the Midwest. So we got this like great triangle between us where we really can, I mean, I hope we bring together all the different tastes and stories and lived experiences from these different parts of the country and all of our different backgrounds. 

Romen Borsellino:

And that's real diversity right there. I mean, it could be all AAPIers, but we could all happen to come from the same part of San Francisco or you know, Devon Avenue in Chicago, Little India over there.

Alex Woo:

Yeah, that's sort of the perspective is all — there's no diversity at all. So yeah.

Romen Borsellino:

I totally feel you. That was when, I was the token Indian growing up in Iowa. And then I got to Amherst and no one cared that I was South Asian. People couldn't believe I was from Iowa. That was what made me unique.I  was like, that's unique to you guys?

Alex Woo:

You're the token I win.

Romen Borsellino:

Yeah, exactly. Everyone needs to have at least one. 

I mentioned the pacifiers falling from the sky, the baloney, the crazy stuff. I don't even know how you would begin coming up with the things that appear in dreams. what were your like, I'll start with you Alex, what were your like wildest, craziest imaginations that you came up with? Tim, did you ever have to talk him back from the ledge? We like, that's too crazy, we're not putting that even in a dream?

Tim Hahn:

I mean, definitely the imagination was wild enough where I would get a little stressed out. Can we actually pull this off technically in the budget? I can't, nothing comes to mind that’s like  “no, that's not allowed.”

Alex Woo:

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, obviously, you know, making a movie in the dream world is so exciting because anything can happen in dreams, especially when it's an animated film, you can do anything. And so there's almost like paralysis with too much, too much optionality. Right. And so you, I really had to find a way to ground it.

And the way I did that was twofold. was one, I wanted to make sure that all the dreams were somehow rooted in real life experience. So whether the dreams came from my life or from Tim's or from our story teams or from Eric's or Stanley's life, I wanted every single dream in there to have been something that somebody experienced on our team. The other aspect was to make sure that the experience of dreaming felt true to the real life experience of dreaming. 

You know, when I, when I dream, it's usually things that happened to me during the day, right? People, places, things that I encountered during the day end up in my dreams at night. And I think that's the –– that your brain is trying to process all the things that happened to you during the day. And so I wanted to make sure that with Stevie and Elliot, every dreamscape they entered was somehow set up in the real world. And so that became the grounding force, and the constraint that, you know, really sort of liberated me and my team to come up with all these dreams. 

So like breakfast town, for example, you know, when I was a kid, my mom used to make French toast for us every Sunday morning. And so that was like our family breakfast time. And I have such fond memories of that. You know, food is so connected to memories and emotions and it really, you know, that made me feel like it was, that made me feel like family, you know?

And so, with our film in the opening, Stevie's making French toast, she's making breakfast with her family, and that represents family to her, represents a perfect time in her family. And so when she dreams, she goes off into this adventure, of course, she's going to be in a dream world filled with breakfast food, because that's what represents family to her. So there was always like a logic to every sort of dreamscape that we created. I think

Roman Borsellino:

Did you consult like dream specialists on this?

Alex Woo:

No, but I did read some books. read, why we sleep by Matthew Walker. I think that's the name of the title, or the book. And, yeah, it was, you know, what's so amazing about dreams is that we still don't know why we dream like, you know, neurologists and, and, and, cognitive scientists, they still have to be trying to figure it out, right? They can kind of understand the mechanics, right? Like if synapses firing, but they still don't know what the purpose of function of it is.

They just know that when you don't dream, we notice that you have problems like sort of processing memories and emotions, but why they still don't know. And so that's great fodder for like fiction and mythology and storytelling. So that's why I was so excited to tell a story in this space and in this world.

Tim Hahn:

And then I think all of that is to encourage like watching the movie again, to catch the details of the ways in which our incredibly talented story team, Eric, Stanley and Alex, like seated in the real world, things that pay off in big but also very subtle ways too in the dreams.

Romen Borsellino:

I will definitely be watching it again, so I appreciate that with friends and family. 

Okay, the whole movie was funny, but there was one moment where I was just watching it by myself. was laughing, truly laughing out loud at it. And I don't want to give too much away, but it was about a character sharing a certain conspiracy theory about maybe butterflies actually being government drones. And I just thought that was the funniest thing. And then my next thought was, is that something these guys believe?

Is that born out of personal experience or are there any other crazy conspiracy theories either of you would like to share right now?

Tim Hahn:

I bet Eric believes it.

Alex Woo:

Yeah, probably. So that was Eric Benson, our co-director and co-writer. It was his line and his idea. And when he told everyone we were like you, we just like couldn't stop laughing. We're like, that is so ridiculous. It's so funny. I don't know if you noticed, but when we cross dissolve to the prologue. 

Romen Borsellino:

Yeah. It's a butterfly. 

Alex Woo:

I don’t know if you noticed.

Romen Borsellino:

Trust me, I noticed. 

Alex Woo:

Okay, good. Well not many people notice that, so you are very astute

Tim Hahn:

Very astute

Romen Borsellino:

The payoff was big. I was like, “oh hell yeah.” Totally worth it. Rest assured, if I am the only person who noticed it, was still worth it. It was that great. 

And then really the last question I wanted to ask you guys. And first of all, I know you won some Emmys on your Netflix children's series, Go Go, Cory Carson. Congratulations. 

So you've already gotten some hardware aside from the obvious like bringing home an Academy Award and getting huge streaming numbers. You know, what in your minds would classify this film as a success?

Alex Woo:

I mean, those are the obvious ones, but I think more than anything, even with Go Go Cory Carson, what means the most to me as a filmmaker is when audience members reach out to us because they are so moved or touched or entertained by the work that we do. And we still get emails, we get letters, fan mail from kids, from parents telling us how much they love that show.

And so I think, you know, if we are able to do the same thing with this film, With “In Your Dreams,” I think that would be, you know, my definition of success. It probably would mean more to me than any of the hardware, you know, the Academy Awards, the, you know, the streaming numbers. Obviously those things would be fantastic, but you really want to, you know, the reason you the reason I make these things, I tell these stories and I make these films is I really want to connect with people and I want to touch them in a certain way. 

And so that is really the goal, right? It's like,I feel like filmmaking is like cooking, right? Like you cook because you want to nourish people. You want to like, it's a way to, it's like a vessel for love. Like how can I love you in a really non-creepy, like tangible way.

And you don't do it because you want to win the James Beard award. You want to get Michelin rated stars. I mean, of course that's nice, but the core purpose is I want to find a way to, like, love people through these, through this medium. And so that is, would be my definition of success.

Romen Borsellino:

I for one felt loved, Alex. So mission accomplished.

Alex Woo:

I, yeah, we love you, Romen

Romen Borsellino:

Thank you, thank you.

Tim Hahn:

We're fellow Amherst College grads 

Romen Borsellino:

Exactly. 

Tim Hahn:

So we're connected for sure.

Romen Borsellino:

Well, great. Thank you guys so much. It was really great talking to you.

Alex Woo:

Great talking to you, and this was one of the best interviews we've had today, so thank you.

Romen Borsellino:

Thank you so much, that means a lot.

How a post Vietnam War staple became a rising star in the American coffee scene.

For decades, coffee has been a big part of Vietnam’s everyday lifestyle and in recent years, this caffeinated treat has traveled across the sea to become a new American obsession.

The first documentation of coffee in Vietnam was in 1857 when French missionaries brought over an Arabica tree with plans to begin a small business. It wasn’t until the early 20th century when production began to increase and allow this simple bean to completely transform coffee culture. By the 1920s, French colonists were opening production plantations in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, exporting 1,500 tons of coffee every year. This number increased to 2,000 tons by 1940.

Unfortunately, the Vietnam War forced coffee production in the country to come to a complete halt resulting in an economic downturn. Years after the war ended, the government finally decided to invest in certain crops, coffee being one of them. From there, Vietnamese coffee production increased over the years, and later would transform the economy, this time in a positive way.

Robusta coffee took over as the dominant bean as it was much easier to grow in Vietnam than Arabica. When farmers began to rebuild their lives after the war, robusta was the most practical and profitable option.

By the 1990s, Vietnam was the world’s second largest coffee exporter and is now responsible for the production of 40% of the world’s robusta beans. Robusta’s high caffeine content and bold flavor put Vietnam on the map with iconic drinks like cà phê sữa đá. When citizens were dealing with wartime shortages, fresh milk was difficult to find, so sweetened condensed milk was introduced as a replacement, which ended up perfectly complementing the robusta bean.

As immigrants began to arrive in the United States, their coffee traditions came with them and Vietnamese cafes began to open up, introducing locals to something new. In the 2010s Vietnamese American entrepreneurs began to make a push for Vietnamese coffee to break into mainstream cafes and grocery stores and suddenly, flavors like coconut and salted cream were everywhere.

Vietnamese coffee is one of America’s fastest growing trends and it continues to bridge cultures and create community. From the streets of Ho Chi Minh City to Los Angeles cafes, the striking flavor of Vietnamese coffee preserves a piece of heritage that will be shared and passed down forever.

Asian-interest fraternities are putting their focus on Asian pride, leadership, and unity across college universities.

Many people don’t know that there is a side of Greek life that doesn’t always involve reckless parties and endless kegs, but instead focuses on Asian pride and leadership. These are three of the top Asian fraternities making a cultural difference on college campuses.

Starting with the world’s largest Asian-interest frat, Lambda Phi Epsilon.

Founded in 1981 at UCLA, Lambda Phi Epsilon’s vision was to provide representation and advocacy for Asian Americans in the Greek community, while still welcoming members of all ethnic backgrounds. Craig Ishigo and Darryl Mu made history as the frat’s first president and vice president and within just a few years, Lambda Phi Epsilon expanded rapidly to universities nationwide including the University of Texas, Austin and the University of Michigan.

There are currently over 70 chapters across the U.S. strengthening the Lambda name as they continue to be known for their community service and donation drives that help thousands in the Asian community.

Next is Omega Phi Gamma.

With a goal to promote brotherhood in the Asian-American community, Omega Phi Gamma was founded at the University of Texas at Austin in 1995. The twenty founding fathers conducted their first rush in the fall and the chapter stood as a member of the Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council on campus.

Omega Phi Gamma is known for their annual UNITY talent show that showcases Asian American talent as well as the Omega's infamous step show. Their annual philanthropic project is the Lance Armstrong Foundation where members and alumni participate in the Livestrong bike ride.

Then there’s Pi Delta Psi.

Over on the East coast, Pi Delta Psi was founded in 1994 at Binghamton University with the vision to promote Asian American unity. The fraternity’s pillars focus on academic achievement, friendship, righteousness, and cultural awareness encouraging members to pursue excellence without losing touch with their roots.

Pi Delta Psi chapters are required to host a set number of annual cultural activities and events on campus. Every year, members perform a traditional lion dance on campus and some chapters even host an “Amazing Race: Asian Edition” alongside Asian-interest sorority, Kappa Phi Lambda.

A 56-homer Triple Crown season preceded the power hitter’s official entry into the MLB posting system, kicking off a feverish 45-day bidding war.

Major League Baseball is still agog with Japanese fever after the Dodgers won back-to-back World Series titles last month.

In the minds of fans and back offices alike that feat is inextricably tied to Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s 2025 series MVP title and 3-time league MVP Shohei Ohtani’s best individual MLB performance of all time in the NLCS. 

And now the MLB is about to get another young Japanese star – Munetaka Murakami.

The 25-year-old third baseman formally entered the MLB posting system last Saturday after eight seasons in the NPB.  Murakami earned All-Star nods four times, including his historic 2022 Triple Crown season, by homering 56 times to break NBP’s single season HR record for a Japanese-born player set in 1964 by Sadaharu Oh. 

By comparison the most homeruns Ohtani ever hit in a single NPB season was 22, though he averaged a significantly lower number of plate appearance per game and season than Murakami.

The highly anticipated bidding war has a 45-day negotiating window that ends December 22, 2025, at 5 p.m. ET.

MLB suits are feverishly assembling nine-figure deals for the 6’2” 213-lb power hitter, potentially resetting the market for international free agents.   Those potential offers are likely to strain team budgets.  The signing team must pay a tiered transfer fee to the Kumamoto-native’s NPB team, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, ranging from 15%-20% of each dollar of the contract.

Among the clubs expected to bid for Murakami are the Yankees, Mets, Mariners, Phillies, Giants, Red Sox, and of course — the Dodgers.   A recent poll of baseball writers had 46% giving the nod to the Mariners. The franchise that ultimately secures Murakami isn't just acquiring a power bat; they’re cementing their lineup’s dominance for the next decade.  Like his former competitor and WBC teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Murakami promises to deliver immediate and transformative success as amply demonstrated on the other side of the Pacific.

HYBE Corporation is home to some of music’s biggest names internationally and it all started with the man who imagined Big Hit Entertainment.

Inside this very Seoul office, history is being made. This isn’t just any music company, but the center of the K-pop empire. Welcome to HYBE Corporation, one of the most influential offices on the planet.

HYBE currently operates as a record label, talent agency, publishing house, and more, but before it was one of the world’s biggest names, it was just one man’s dream. Music producer, Bang Si-hyuk, also known as Hitman Bang, founded Big Hit Entertainment in 2005.

Without massive resources and backup, Bang Si-hyuk was on a mission and eventually signed music artist RM as the first member of boy band BTS in 2010. A nationwide search was conducted with hopes of finding other members of the group, which later allowed BTS to debut in 2013. Si-hyuk and the seven members from Big Hit Entertainment had no idea that they would go on to cement themselves into K-pop history.

The criticism and rejection that Bang Si-hyuk and BTS received did not stop their run as they went on to conquer the global stage by 2017, selling out stadiums and topping music charts around the world. In 2021, Big Hit Entertainment rebranded as HYBE Corporation, marking a new era, not just for K-pop, but for Korean entertainment.

HYBE was expanding quickly and acquired many other companies like Pledis Entertainment and Source Music. HYBE America was also launched in collaboration with talent manager Scooter Braun as the CEO who has managed icons like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

With his success, Si-hyuk has ventured off into gaming, fashion collabs, and has even built a digital platform called Weverse, where artists can interact with their fans directly. Today, HYBE is worth approximately $8.7 billion and stands as one of the world’s most powerful entertainment companies.

Creativity never sleeps in these offices and at HYBE hundreds of creatives come together every day to shape pop culture and push the boundaries of what entertainment can be.

Niki Nakayama, Corey Lee, and Jason Liang are culinary visionaries breaking barriers in the fine-dining scene.

These three Asian American chefs are taking the fine dining world by storm with their innovative dishes that are earning the highest culinary achievement, the Michelin star.

Starting with Niki Nakayama.

The Los Angeles native was born to Japanese parents who worked as fish distributors. After studying at the Southern California School of Culinary Arts, Nakayama spent three years in Japan, immersing herself and her cooking in the culture.

She opened n/naka in the heart of L.A. in 2011 where she features a multi-course menu using seasonal ingredients. Some of which are grown right in Nakayama’s personal garden. She earned the StarChefs Rising Star Chef Award in 2014 and in 2019 her restaurant was one of six restaurants in the city to receive two Michelin stars.

Our next star is Korean-American chef, Corey Lee.

He is a restaurateur born in Seoul and moved to the United States with his family in 1982. When Lee was 17, he began working at Blue Ribbon Sushi in New York before entering fine dining. In 2001 he helped culinary legend Thomas Keller open Per Se in New York City and later returned as head chef at The French Laundry in Napa Valley.

Lee opened his own restaurant called Benu in San Francisco in 2010 and was awarded three Michelin stars in 2014 and has maintained those three stars for ten consecutive years. His other restaurants San Ho Won and In Situ each have also earned a Michelin star. He is a two-time James Beard award winner proving that he has perfected the fusion of Korean and French cuisine.

Finally, down in Atlanta we have Taiwanese-American chef, Jason Liang.

He was born in South Carolina and grew up in Taiwan where he climbed the industry ladder starting in hotel kitchens in Taipei. Liang trained under Japanese chefs and later moved back to the United States in 2006 to continue his career working in small sushi restaurants. His dream was to bring Tokyo style dishes and traditions right to Atlanta.

In 2016 he opened up Brush Sushi, giving sushi lovers authentic fish, ramen, and even a separate omakase counter, O by Brush, which is run by Liang himself. He was awarded a Michelin star in 2024 for his 20-course omakase experience and stands as one of the only eight Atlanta restaurants with a Michelin-One-Star.

Developing a neuro-controlled prosthetic hand led a former top pro tennis player to positions of tech entrepreneurship and leadership.

Yoky Matsuoka combined robotics, engineering, technology, and biology to achieve breakthroughs that have advanced the field of neuro-controlled prosthetics or neurobotics.

Once upon a time Matsuoka was a top 25 tennis player in Japan.  The sport inspired her college fascination with the possibility of a tennis-playing robot.  Her studies in prosthetics allowed her to begin writing code for humanoid hands and arms. 

Those efforts led to the development of Anatomically Correct Testbed robotic hand in 2010 while she was directing the Neurobotics Lab at the University of Washington and serving as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon.  This robotic hand contains an intricate tendon structure that mimicks the human muscular system and allows precise finger movements controlled by neural signals from the brain.

In 2009 Matsuoka co-founded Google X, Google’s research and development lab.  She contributed innovations for the company’s medical portfolio and to Project Loon which sought to expand internet connectivity through stratospheric balloons and Waymo self-driving cars.

She served as Chief Technology Officer at home automation company Nest from 2010 until it was acquired by Google in 2015.  She led development of Nest’s learning thermostat by leveraged machine learning to help users save energy. 

Matsuoka held a board director position at HP for two years before focusing on entrepreneurship full time. 

In 2021 she launched Yohana, an AI-powered personal assistant that can book appointments, research hotels, and hire a handyman among other tasks.  Yohana is a subsidiary of Panasonic’s business incubator Panasonic Well.  Matsuoka became the division’s CEO in 2023.

Matsuoka earned a bachelor of electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley in 1993 and a master’s and Ph.D. from MIT in the same discipline, concentrating in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience.

The 54-year-old currently resides in Cupertino, California.

Discover three of Asia’s most beautiful winter wonderlands, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, and Kashmir —  where culture meets snowy magic. 

If you’re ready to plan your next winter vacation, these three Asian countries are offering itineraries full of culture and excitement that will make the flight worth it.

Our first stop is South Korea.

Winter in Seoul is magical. The Seoul Winter Festa in December features stunning light installations and lantern shows or attend an iconic ice fishing festival. South Korea is home to many ski resorts that offer sledding, skiing, and snowboarding activities and if you head over to Seoul Plaza or Olympic Park, outdoor ice skating rinks light up the city.

Winter is the off-season for tourists in South Korea, so it is peak timing for smaller crowds and even lower flight prices. For a breathtaking adventure, take a ferry to Nami Island where you can make an adventurous move and try out the zip line so you can see the scenery covered in snow from above.

Moving over to Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is a unique destination for those looking for a true winter wonderland excursion.

The cold temperatures make Kyrgyzstan an ideal place for snow sports. Visit Karakol resort to go snowboarding in the morning and relax in the hot springs at night. Horseback riding near the Chong-Kemin mountain range is another popular activity for anyone excited to see snowy landscapes. Then after a long day of being outside in the cold, warm yourself up with a bowl of beshbarmak, a traditional noodle dish.

If you’re craving an authentic and cultural experience, spend the night in a yurt underneath the stars and don’t miss the eagle hunters in action. Their hunting traditions express a deep bond between human and nature and have been kept alive for the future generations. Whether you are exploring frozen lakes or camping under constellations, winter in Kyrgyzstan is a hidden gem waiting to be explored.

Up in India’s northernmost region, Kashmir is another winter paradise that should be on your travel radar.

With a view of the famous Himalayas mountains in every angle, Kashmir will make every photo look like a scene out of a postcard. Gulmarg is one of Asia’s number one ski destinations with the world’s highest gondola ride being the center of attention. Book a stay in a houseboat on Dal Lake surrounded by snow-covered willow trees and take a beautiful ride along the partially frozen bed of water.

Beyond the natural beauty, Kashmir is full of culture. Explore the street markets where you can find handwoven shawls and even saffron, the most expensive spice in the world. In Kashmir, any activity will capture the essence of India’s beauty and heritage, so book your flight so that you can wake up to the sound of prayers echoing through the bright white valleys.