With six runs in six different countries, online influencer Mong Chin Yeoh is traveling all over Southeast Asia for her TV debut in a new original series, Who Runs the World with Mong Chin.

Teaming up with Canon, Lifetime Asia and the A+E Network, Yeoh visited Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines within a span of eight weeks. Besides the race, the Singaporean social media darling also tried out local activities that are popular in each location.

Yeoh, who was born in Singapore on Oct. 17, 1993, and attended Singapore Management University, had always enjoyed reading lifestyle blogs and watching beauty videos.

Inspired by a number of them, like Singaporean Xiaxue, Jaclyn Hill, Tati and Tina Yong, Yeoh started lifestyle blogging in 2012 on her website mongabong.com where she would share tips and tricks on fashion and beauty with her readers and, later on, food and product recommendations.

Majoring in accounting, Yeoh graduated with a Bachelor’s degree but decided to pursue her dreams of being a lifestyle blogger instead. Even though it seemed unrealistic at the time, Yeoh did not relent. In 2014, she joined the Nuffnang family — one of the largest blog advertising companies in Southeast Asia where bloggers can meet and collaborate.

Eventually, she expanded her platform further onto Instagram and YouTube creating content similar to that of her blog, like make-up tutorials and travel vlogs.

As of today, the online influencer has over 50,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 150,000 followers on Instagram. With her YouTube videos, blog and Instagram, she grew to be the influencer she is now.

“I have always loved make-up and beauty a lot. I always follow these vloggers and YouTubers. I greatly benefitted from their reviews and make-up tutorials. That’s how I learned everything. […] Never would I imagine that it would be my full-time job,” said Yeoh.

With a show that centers on a digital-first approach, Yeoh was allowed to constantly update her social media profiles as she was shooting each episode.

As an online influencer, she has to constantly update her profiles to maintain her subscribers. Hence, the show’s producers decided that the real-time concept would be best not only for her, but for her followers as well who would be able to see behind-the-scenes clips and reply to her posts with food and activity suggestions while she was shooting in different locations.

“When I got to Indonesia [for the first time], I would do my IG story first like ‘Hi! I’m in Indonesia, guys. Is there anything you want me to do? Anything I should try?’ And most of the times we try to incorporate some of the food recommendations as a part of our itinerary and this way it’s a little more real and people can also see behind the scenes because this show is all about being real,” said Yeoh.

Traditional dance: Online influencer Mong Chin Yeoh performs the tari lombok dance during her Indonesia stop for the series Who Runs the World with Mong Chin.(Courtesy of A+E Network)

The shooting was also unique as Yeoh would be recording herself most of the time as if she was vlogging. While a camera crew followed her around the countries, she wanted her viewers to feel as if they were just watching another one of her travel vlogs.

Throughout the six-episode show, Yeoh was not alone. She met musicians, food bloggers, fashion designers and other figures who helped her during her journey.

As a first-time racer, she said, she relied on some of those people for guidance not only for her to succeed within a short eight-week time slot, but also to show her around the local areas of each country.

During her Indonesia stop, she visited Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara for the Rinjani 100 Ultramarathon Trail — one of the toughest races in the world.

But before she began the race, she trained on the island, journeyed to the Benang Kelambu and Benang Stokel waterfalls, visited the Gili islands for a mermaid adventure and cooked local food at the Tugu Hotel for guests. She also visited a songket weaving factory, a popular activity among locals and tourists, where she watched and learned how to weave textiles.

Through her show, Yeoh hopes her actions and adventures will empower women by showing them what they are capable of while also promoting the destinations she visited.

“Lifetime is mostly about empowering women. So, I am very, very honored and proud to be able to represent women in the media industry and, you know, to show people that ‘hey, I can do all these things’. It seems impossible but I can do it, so can you. So, I hope that is the message that people take out of it […] And, of course, [I want to] promote the destinations I’ve been to,” said Yeoh.

— The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.

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Who Runs the World with Mong Chin premiered on July 23 and will air every Monday at 8:30 p.m. in Indonesia on BigTv, First Media, Indovision and Transvision.