Meet the Tates
New Yorkers Nate and Mary Kate know it’s rare for siblings to start a company, write a book, and create a show together. They grew up military brats, having to rely on each other whenever they moved to a new place, which they did often. Then in 1989 they staged a production of Little Red Riding Hood in their driveway, and they've been doing projects together ever since. They both studied, lived and worked in China and co-wrote the book Feeding the Dragon: A Culinary Travelogue Through China with Recipes. Friends and family think they fight a lot, but to them it’s just their unfiltered way of communicating.
The Tates' passion for learning from other cultures is infectious. They immerse themselves in the traditions, foods and languages of each place they bike to, getting to know the peoples and learning to understand their way of life, whether that be a diamond miner in Botswana or a rice farmer in China. Not only will their travel discoveries on the show be wildly entertaining, they will challenge misconceptions of cultures around the world.
MARY KATE always does exactly what she wants. Like the time last year when she was scuba diving and chased down a 6-foot tiger shark while Nate (or Bubba as she calls him) looked on in horror. But problems arise when things aren’t under her control. Her anxiety takes over and she becomes “Scary Mary” as Bubba puts it. Her mind races with all that could go wrong on a bike adventure: flat tires, exhaustion, no food, broken limbs, nights with nowhere to sleep. It’s enough to make her pull her hair out, which she does often.
NATE doesn’t worry much, except about Mary Kate; she’ll always be his little sister. Perhaps because of his over-praising mom or his obsession with self-help books and too many after-school Oprah episodes, Nate thinks anything is possible and he never knows when to stop. He often finds himself leaving work and deciding to run home, only to run past his apartment and keep going for another twenty miles. It’s often on these runs that he comes up with ideas like starting a design company with Mary Kate, trekking in the jungle with elephants, and even this show was thought up at mile 22. Mary Kate calls him the “crazy train conductor,” and he certainly is delusional, but his irresistible charm and charisma will have viewers believing in the impossible too.
Bios
Nate Tate was one of the first Texas college students to study at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University. He is a self-professed Chinese food obsessive, and in his quest to master the cooking of Chinese food, he has talked his way into restaurant kitchens across China to learn straight from the cooks. He has toured seventeen of China’s twenty-two provinces, and while living in Beijing, Nate worked as a restaurant designer and as an art director at an international advertising agency. Nate currently lives in Manhattan and regularly runs 10+ miles when his foot isn’t broken (like it is now).
Mary Kate Tate first became interested in China after visiting the faraway country as a high school student. She later studied Mandarin and Chinese history at the University of Texas at Austin and at Nanjing Normal University in China. In addition to cofounding a creative agency with her brother and working as a copywriter in New York City, she has worked as a teacher in China’s Hebei Province and as a writer in Beijing. Mary Kate lives in Brooklyn and rides her bike to work wearing a red and white polka dot helmet.