Ma Jingxiang
He entered his second Korean survival show carrying the memory of the first one, finished PROJECT 7 in first place, and became the tall, dryly funny center of gravity CLOSE YOUR EYES did not know it needed.
Identity dashboard
马靖翔 · 마징시앙
CLOSE YOUR EYES member
Public profiles connect him with Chongqing and Shanghai; CVM does not publish a more precise private location.
ETERNALT and “All My Poetry”
Finale: December 27, 2024
Wood Monkey, calculated after the 2004 Lunar New Year boundary
Before Korea knew him as a survival-show comeback story
Ma Jingxiang’s file begins in China, not in a Korean audition room. He was associated with the pre-debut Chinese project Midsummer Cubs, a detail repeated across contestant records from his later television appearances. That project never became the stable idol launch its trainees were working toward, but it gave him an early taste of cameras, group choreography, and the particular frustration of preparing for a debut that remains conditional.
By the time he reached Korean television, he already had the polished proportions companies love to advertise: very tall, long-limbed, and immediately noticeable in a group shot. The useful part is what happened after the first impression. Long limbs can make choreography look magnificent or unfinished. Jingxiang had to learn how to control the extra distance in every arm line, stop, and transition. That physical adjustment became one of the clearest differences between his first and second survival-show runs.
Boys Planet: visibility, conflict editing, and a 30th-place exit
Mnet introduced Ma Jingxiang as a Chinese G-Group trainee on Boys Planet in 2023. He was one of the “Shining Boys” revealed before the main broadcast and appeared in the show’s “Here I Am” material. He entered with striking visuals and enough early attention to become recognizable before viewers knew much about his voice or temperament.
He finished in 30th place and was eliminated before the finale. The number is simple. The television story was not. His “Rush Hour” team became part of one of the season’s most argued-over practice-room edits, where line distribution, leadership, language, and trainee frustration were compressed into a conflict viewers could judge from their couches. Some fans treated the edit as a permanent personality test. Others later rewatched it with more sympathy for a young Chinese trainee trying to negotiate in Korean while every hesitation became footage.
The important fact is that Boys Planet did not debut him. The more important career fact is that he returned anyway. Survival shows sell resilience as a slogan. Jingxiang had to practice the ugly version, where resilience means volunteering to be judged again by many of the same viewers.
PROJECT 7: the second audition changed the ending
JTBC announced Ma Jingxiang among the international contestants for PROJECT 7 in 2024. Unlike Boys Planet, the program asked viewers to “assemble” teams and treated lineup construction as part of the format. He arrived older, steadier, and visibly more cautious about group conflict.
His ranking stayed inside the competitive upper tier and climbed when it mattered. Viewers were responding to more than height and a redemption narrative. His fancams showed cleaner control, he made fewer desperate bids for attention, and he became useful in formations because the camera could find him without the rest of the team disappearing. The restraint was especially noticeable to people who remembered how hard he had tried to prove himself two years earlier.
In the live finale on December 27, 2024, global votes and the final benefit produced the seven-member lineup. Ma Jingxiang finished first with more than six million points in the combined final calculation reported after the broadcast. He was announced ahead of Sakurada Kenshin, Jeon Minwook, Seo Kyoungbae, Song Seungho, Jang Yeojun, and Kim Sungmin.
That first-place finish matters historically inside this little corner of K-pop. A Chinese trainee who had exited another Korean survival show in 30th place returned and topped the next one. It did not erase the earlier show. It turned it into the first act.
CLOSE YOUR EYES: debuting as the winner without swallowing the group
CLOSE YOUR EYES debuted on April 2, 2025 under UNCORE with the EP ETERNALT and “All My Poetry.” The group’s name carries two connected ideas: music that can still be felt when the listener closes their eyes, and growth visible every time those eyes open again. It is unusually fitting for a lineup made from contestants whose television histories could easily have trapped them in old narratives.
Being PROJECT 7’s first-place finisher did not turn Jingxiang into the official leader. That job went to Jeon Minwook, the eldest member and an already debuted idol. The division makes sense. Jingxiang supplies visibility, a huge international voting story, and a distinct physical silhouette. Minwook handles much of the practical leadership. The group gets to use both men without pretending popularity and management are the same skill.
The debut moved quickly. Korean reporting noted that ETERNALT passed 310,000 first-week sales and that CLOSE YOUR EYES won a music show six days after debut, then entered fan meetings and a fast comeback cycle. Later releases including Snowy Summer, blackout, and the 2026 digital single “Overexposed” asked the members to move from soft literary styling into darker, more forceful performance work.
In a Rolling Stone Korea interview, Jingxiang introduced himself as the group’s “big boy.” It is a joke built around the obvious, but it also captures his public function. He can look imposing in a still photo and then turn around and behave like the amused tall friend who has been assigned to reach the top shelf. That contrast gives editors something better than a one-note visual.
What Ma Jingxiang actually does onstage
Scale and formation
At roughly 188 centimeters in published profiles, he changes the geometry of a seven-person formation. Choreographers can use him as a center line, a frame, or a visual endpoint. The danger is that a poorly balanced formation makes everyone else look compressed. His best CYE stages solve that by lowering his center of gravity and keeping arm lines precise instead of simply making them large.
Dance growth
The improvement from Boys Planet to PROJECT 7 is more useful than calling him a perfect dancer. His timing is cleaner, transitions are less rushed, and he no longer looks like he is fighting his own reach. He is strongest when choreography asks for controlled power and a clear silhouette.
Voice and line use
CYE has not promoted him as the lineup’s primary vocalist. His recorded value is tonal contrast, short vocal phrases, and performance presence. A fan page does not need to inflate every member into an all-rounder. Jingxiang’s job is to make his sections land and make the whole stage read clearly.
Language and global work
He promotes primarily in Korean with the group and communicates with Chinese-speaking fans as a native Mandarin speaker. His Korean fluency is functional enough for interviews, live broadcasts, and group content, but the site is not assigning him a language-exam score he never published.
Personality and fandom file, with receipts instead of horoscope fiction
Official interviews and Weverse posts show a member who leans into playful visual jokes, gratitude after wins, and short affectionate updates rather than long confessional essays. His July 17, 2025 Weverse post thanked CLOSER after a music-show win and promised to work harder. That is a small receipt, but it is better than declaring that he is “mysterious” because he has cheekbones.
The fandom’s protective response is also shaped by history. Viewers watched him be reduced to conflict clips on one show, disappear from the Korean debut path, then return to win another. Some fans overcorrect and treat all criticism as persecution. The healthier version is simpler: evaluate the current work, keep old footage in context, and let adults improve.
Dated timeline
2019 to 2022, reported: Associated with the Chinese pre-debut project Midsummer Cubs.
2023: Competed on Mnet’s Boys Planet; eliminated in 30th place.
February 2024: A personal post circulated in which he discussed stepping back from the idol path during a difficult period. CVM treats translations of that post cautiously because reposts often remove context.
2024: Entered JTBC’s PROJECT 7 as a Chinese contestant.
December 27, 2024: Ranked first in the live finale and joined CLOSE YOUR EYES.
April 2, 2025: Debuted with ETERNALT and “All My Poetry.”
June 2025: Discussed the group’s strengths and comeback work in an ELLE Korea interview translated by Soompi.
2025 to 2026: Continued through the group’s rapid EP, fan-meeting, music-show, and comeback schedule.
April 2026: Participated in promotions for “Overexposed,” with the group discussing its first-year growth in Korean press.
Zodiac side quest, for fandom entertainment only
Western sign: Aquarius
February 16 places Jingxiang under Aquarius. Pop astrology gives Aquarius the independent streak, the willingness to take the strange route, and a stubborn refusal to accept the obvious ending. The playful match here is not that a constellation made his decisions. It is that his public career really did include walking back into Korean survival television after a rough first run and refusing to let one edit become his entire biography.
Chinese zodiac: Wood Monkey
The 2004 Lunar New Year began on January 22, so his February 16 birthday falls safely inside the Wood Monkey year, not the previous Water Goat year. Traditional zodiac writing treats the Monkey as quick, adaptable, observant, and able to recover when the room changes. The Wood element softens the image of a lone trickster and adds growth, cooperation, and the patience to build something over time. That is a much more interesting fandom lens for his second survival-show run than calling him lucky.
When Aquarius and Wood Monkey share one idol
The RaeRae version says this combination would read the room, hate being trapped by somebody else’s storyline, quietly redesign the exit, and return through the front door with a first-place trophy. Cute? Yes. Proof of personality? Absolutely not. The receipts for his growth are the performances, rankings, interviews, and group work above. The zodiac is just the boba-straw side quest.
YouTube tracking history
This profile tracks official CLOSE YOUR EYES music videos, dance practices, performance films, behind-the-scenes uploads, and PROJECT 7 or Boys Planet stages featuring Ma Jingxiang. It keeps the two survival-program chapters separate from his 2025 group debut and later releases. View totals change continuously, so the page records official uploads and career context instead of freezing temporary counts.
Sources
- CLOSE YOUR EYES on Weverse
- CLOSE YOUR EYES official YouTube
- CLOSE YOUR EYES official Instagram
- Rolling Stone Korea: CLOSE YOUR EYES interview and member introductions
- iMBC: PROJECT 7 finale and debut lineup
- Korea JoongAng Daily: debut album, group meaning, and preparation
- Soompi translation of ELLE Korea interview
- Sports Kyunghyang: “Overexposed” interview and first-year reflection
- Ma Jingxiang Weverse post, July 17, 2025
Related CVM pages: CLOSE YOUR EYES group profile · Music video reviews · Tea with receipts