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Mike Chen

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Not to be confused with Michael Chen.
In this Chinese name, the family name is Chen.

Mike Chen
Born
Chen Xing[1]

1980 or 1981 (age 42–43)[2]
Xi'an, China
Alma materTruman State University
OccupationYouTuber
Years active2006–present
YouTube information
Channels
Genres
Subscribers8.62 million (combined)
Total views1.67 billion (combined)
Associated acts
  • Off the Great Wall
  • Awesome Toy Review!
100,000 subscribers
1,000,000 subscribers
Last updated: May 9, 2022
Chen Xing
Traditional Chinese陳興
Simplified Chinese陈兴
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinChén Xīng
IPA[ʈʂʰə̌n ɕíŋ]
Websitewww.shopmikeychen.com

Chen Xing (born 1980 or 1981),[1][2] better known as Mike "Mikey" Xing Chen, is a Chinese-born American YouTuber. A former staff member of New Tang Dynasty Television's YouTube channel Off the Great Wall, Chen is notable for his YouTube channel Strictly Dumpling, a series of vlogs focusing on food and travel. In addition to running Strictly Dumpling, Chen also runs the YouTube channels Cook With Mikey (previously Pho the Love of Food),[3] Eat With Mikey,[3] Beyond Science,[2] Mike Chen,[4] The Chen Dynasty (previously The Double Chen Show), and The CheNews (previously The Double Chen News). Chen has over 5 million subscribers on all of his YouTube channels combined.[3]

Early life

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Chen was born in Xi'an, China and moved to the United States when he was 8 years old.[4] He grew up in the American Midwest,[3][2] working at the Chinese buffets that his parents owned.[4]

In a Reddit AMA, Chen stated he attended Truman State University, where he majored in accounting with intentions of becoming an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[5] During his time there, he also served as a resident assistant.[6] After graduating from college,[4] he worked at Morgan Stanley as a financial analyst but left after a year in 2006.[2]

Career

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Once Chen departed from Morgan Stanley, he worked as the head of digital strategy at the non-profit media company New Tang Dynasty Television.[2] Chen cites his reason as being a practitioner of Falun Gong,[3] and he had wanted to promote awareness of human rights violations in China.[4] While working at the company, he worked part-time filming weddings to earn income.[4]

Under New Tang Dynasty Television, Chen co-created the YouTube channel Off the Great Wall, a channel discussing Chinese culture, with several other employees.[7] In 2013, Chen began making vlogs about food, which eventually led him to create multiple YouTube channels dedicated to food vlogs, such as Cook With Mikey (previously Pho the Love of Food), Eat With Mikey, and Strictly Dumpling. In addition, he also runs Beyond Science, a video series discussing strange phenomena,[2] as well as his personal channel, Mike Chen.[4]

In 2015,[2] Chen left New Tang Dynasty Television and Off the Great Wall with his co-worker, Dan Chen, citing creative differences. Chen and Dan then created the YouTube channel The Double Chen Show.[7] The two, along with Yi Yang, moved from New York to San Francisco, California.[8] In addition, Chen, Dan, and Yang created The Double Chen News (commentary on current events in China) and Awesome Toy Review! (toy reviews) as sub-channels.[9] In 2016, Dan and Yang left all three channels to return to New York, while Chen continued The Double Chen Show and The Double Chen News, rebranding them as The Chen Dynasty and The CheNews respectively based on fan suggestions.[8][9]

In 2019, Chen was nominated under the Best in Food category for the 11th Shorty Awards.[10][11] He also announced he plans on opening Karne, a Korean steakhouse, in Dallas, Texas.[4][12]

Personal life

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Chen lived in New York while working with New Tang Dynasty Television, but after leaving in 2015, he moved to San Francisco, California.[8] After living in Seattle, Washington, Chen revealed he moved to Allen, Texas, in 2021.[4] Chen married Christine Ahn on July 12, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.[13]

Chen is a practitioner of Falun Gong and cites it as a reason why he started doing non-profit work with New Tang Dynasty Television.[3] Chen is also an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party, accusing them of various human rights violations such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and the persecution of Uyghurs, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners.[14][15] Due to his views on the Chinese Communist Party, in 2021, comedian Nigel Ng deleted their video collaboration and apologized on Weibo for not realizing Chen's remarks about China.[14][15]

References

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  1. ^ a b ""罗杰叔叔"黃瑾瑜删除与"反共"网红合作视频引发风波" ["Uncle Roger" Nigel Ng deletes collaboration video with "anti-Communist" Internet celebrity, causing a storm]. BBC News (in Chinese). January 15, 2021. Archived from the original on March 21, 2022. Retrieved May 30, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Fierberg, Emma; Huddleston Jr., Tom (July 13, 2019). "'Strictly Dumpling' YouTuber Mike Chen's best and 'most expensive' food day ever". CNBC. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Becker, Sam (May 13, 2019). "Mike Chen: Here's what it takes to become a YouTube star". Grow. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Blaskovich, Sarah (April 23, 2021). "Meet Mike Chen, the YouTube food star who just moved to this Dallas suburb". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  5. ^ "Hi, I'm Mike Chen! I travel the world trying all types of local cuisines – AMA about my travels, food I've tried, tips and tricks for planning a trip, etc". Reddit. 2018. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022. I majored in Accounting to become a FBI agent...yes seriously!
  6. ^ "Hi, I'm Mike Chen! I travel the world trying all types of local cuisines – AMA about my travels, food I've tried, tips and tricks for planning a trip, etc". Reddit. 2018. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022. But yeah, my college campus was EXTREMELY haunted. Truman State. One night at 2AM while I was on rounds (I was an RA), I heard footsteps above me and it matched me stride by stride.
  7. ^ a b Chen, Mike; Chen, Dan (September 22, 2015). Our New Home: Why We Left OTGW (Video). 1:03 minutes in. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022. Mike: We created Off the Great Wall with, uh, a group of people. [...] And recently, the channel, um, you know, because there's other opinions on there [...] —that we have to listen to as well, and with the direction that it was going, we didn't really love.
  8. ^ a b c Chen, Mike; Chen, Dan; Yang, Yi (October 11, 2016). Our Last Video Together... (Video). 0:13 minutes in. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022. Dan: I mean, so, you guys know, like, Mike and I, we were in New York, and then we moved to San Francisco about a few months ago to, you know, work on YouTube to make [videos] for you guys [...] but Yi and I, we actually—due to our personal circumstances, um, we need to move back, uh, to the—to the East Coast [...] but it's not a bad thing because Mike is always gonna be here.
  9. ^ a b Chen, Mike (October 17, 2016). Help Me NAME This Channel! (Video). 1:29 minutes in. Archived from the original on May 14, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022. Mike: I want to just throw this out there and ask you guys to come up with the names for—the new names—for The Double Chen Show and Double Chen News.
  10. ^ "11th Annual Influencer Nominees – The Shorty Awards". Shorty Awards. Archived from the original on February 21, 2019. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  11. ^ "Michelle Obama, Noah Centineo, Marie Kondo, John Mulaney Win 2019 Shorty Awards". The Hollywood Reporter. May 5, 2019. Archived from the original on June 26, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  12. ^ Gillespie, Lane (October 17, 2019). "Korean steakhouse from Houston favorite to open next year". The Business Journals. Archived from the original on October 16, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  13. ^ "DocDetails". clerk.clarkcountynv.gov. Archived from the original on January 4, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  14. ^ a b "Uncle Roger comedian deletes video with China critic". BBC News. January 13, 2021. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
  15. ^ a b Zhang, Phoebe (January 13, 2021). "Comedian Uncle Roger pulls video with anti-Beijing food vlogger Mike Chen from Strictly Dumpling – but draws a backlash". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
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