Survivor: Micronesia - Interview With Yau-Man Chan
I just got off the phone from a conference call interview with Yau-Man Chan, the latest Survivor: Micronesia cast-off. I know many of you, like me, were huge fans of Yau-Man since his time on the Survivor: Fiji season. I was thrilled when I found out that he was one of the returning Favorites. And as one might expect, he’s a delightful man with a great personality. I truly enjoyed talking with him. Here’s what was discussed:
Question: How did the Micronesia experience compare to the Fiji experience?
Yau-Man: Mentally, I was a lot more prepared for this time since I had already gone through the experience. But physically, it was a lot tougher. The challenges were a lot more physical than the ones we had in Fiji. Also, the weather was not cooperating, it was horrible. Rain dumped on us, we’re talking downpours two or three times a day.
Q: Do you think the Favorites went into this season with an advantage or with too much confidence?
(follow the jump for the rest of the interview)
Yau-Man: I think they went in with too much confidence. During the challenges I don’t think we spent enough time strategizing. We didn’t spend enough time thinking through the challenge. Lots of the challenges were repeated from the seasons before. We thought, “Oh, we know what we’re doing,” and then we’d go on and lose it. So I think that was not good.
Q: Have you learned anything about yourself as a result of your Survivor experiences?
Yau-Man: Yes. I learned that I am not a people person. I just don’t read people very well. Like with Cirie. I should have gotten to know her better and faster. I didn’t realize what a strong personality she has. She went from being in a defensive position to a completely offensive position in getting everybody to go along with her to vote me out.
Q: But you did so well in Fiji, I can’t believe that you say you don’t read people well.
Yau-Man: Well, not as well as I should. In Fiji, I was able to play the under-the-radar, weak old man type of game but this time I was a big target coming into the season. Everybody remembered how well I did in Fiji, so I had a target on my back right away.
Q: Did the Favorites underestimate the quality of game-play from the Fans?
Yau-Man: I think the Favorites went in a little bit too cocky. We did very well putting up a nice shelter, being able to make fire, finding a lot of food, but when we got into the challenges we were sort of thumbing our noses at them. We thought we know what we are doing well, and in the end, we got whipped.
Q: Why do you think Cirie flipped so easily?
Yau-Man: She got into a big argument with Jonathan. They were recounting all of each others’ evil deeds during their season. My disadvantage, of course, is that I didn’t know about that be3cause when they were showing the Cook Islands season, we were filming Fiji. I didn’t know all the things that Jonathan did. So when he approached me to align with him, I was happy to do so because he’s an older guy and he has a family, so we had a lot in common. There were four of us and we were trying to bring Cirie into our alliance. I thought it would be obvious that she would do much better with us than with two tightly aligned couples. For some reason, she did not want to align with us, because of Jonathan. Also, she was afraid that if I ever got an immunity idol I would go all the way, or something like that.
Q: Did you spend much time with her?
Yau-Man: No, that may have been my downfall, I should have spent more time with her.
Q: Did you all ever discuss turning on Cirie once it became clear that she wasn’t aligned with you?
Yau-Man: It was mentioned, but we never pursued it. In hindsight, we should have done that. We didn’t talk to the other alliance at all about this. I guess Cirie did a lot of talking to Ozzie and James but Jonathan, Ami or I never talked to them much. If we had talked to them, I guess we could have said vote for the person who’s flip-flopping and trying to stir up trouble. But no, we never pursued it.
Q: The reward challenge we saw last night was very brutal.
Yau-Man: Very brutal, yes. It was one of the most brutal challenges ever. Here’s what happened. It was supposed to be the best two out of three rounds. But the first round took about 45 minutes. So 40 minutes into it and there were no winners yet, the producers stopped the game and told us they were changing it to only the one round. That was it. Everyone agreed that it was just too brutal.
Also, it dumped heavy, heavy rain on us. And you can see that the water was about a foot and a half deep? But what you didn’t see was that underneath the water it was not sand, but a lot of broken coral. A couple of people didn’t wear shoes so they were in trouble. And when we were holding down the pillows, we were on our knees. All our knees were cut up. I’m glad they changed the rules and that everyone agreed.
At one point, someone tried to keep my head under water to drown me. I didn’t know who it was. Eliza started screaming that they were trying to drown Yau-Man. So they stopped the game and changed the rules saying that no one could hold anyone’s head under the water.
Q: An insights about Jeff Probst?
Yau-Man: That’s a funny thing about Jeff Probst. When he’s not playing his part as the host of the challenges and such, he’s a very personable guy. I was very taken aback at how friendly and personable he really was.
Q: Why do you think the Fans were so bad at making shelter and other basic things?
Yau-Man: I think they had so many conflicting personalities, it just didn’t work for them. I also know that they went through a half a flint and still didn’t have fire. You would think that a fan of this show would have figured out how to make a simple shelter and how to start a fire before they went on the show.
I would say that it’s good advice for anyone who wants to be on the show: learn to do the basic survival things before going on. Again, I have to say that it was my own personal thrill to get to talk to one of my favorite Survivors ever. But I am disappointed that it happened so early in the season.
Reality TV, reality-tv, Television, survivor, CBS Survivor, Michael Bortone, Tracy Hughes-Wolf, Joel Anderson, Kathleen Sleckman, Erik Reichenbach, Mary Sartain, Chet Welch, Natalie Bolton, Jason Siska, Alexis Jones, Cirie Fields, Jonathan Penner, Amanda Kimmel, James Clement, Ozzy Lusth, Yau-Man Chan, Eliza Orlins, Parvati Shallow, Ami Cusack, Survivor Micronesia, Survivor China, Survivor Cook Islands, Survivor Panama, Survivor Fiji, Survivor Vanuatu, Survivor Pearl Islands
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POSTED IN: Interviews, Reality Stars, Survivor: Fiji, Survivor: Micronesia
5 opinions for Survivor: Micronesia - Interview With Yau-Man Chan
Questions for Yau - Reality TV Forums at Survivor.com
Feb 22, 2008 at 6:30 pm
[…] Survivor: Micronesia - Interview With Yau-Man Chan Q: Have you learned anything about yourself as a result of your Survivor experiences? Yau-Man: […]
sound bite?? - Reality TV Forums at Survivor.com
Feb 22, 2008 at 6:39 pm
[…] Exploits has a good transcription. There are some things missing from it, but the meat is there. Survivor: Micronesia - Interview With Yau-Man Chan […]
TAR Fan
Feb 23, 2008 at 1:33 am
Ah Yau-Man. I’m really sad I didn’t see you go further, but I expect it’s as you say — people have seen how well you did before and consider you a threat. Of course, it would have been nice if that were a legitimate statement at the time. I don’t see that you were a threat to Cirie’s game at all at that point, but, people see what they want to see.
I’m sad you are gone!
Watching Survivor » Blog Archive » Good Morning, Survivor Fans!
Feb 23, 2008 at 2:29 pm
[…] like I expected he would - with class and gratitude. You can find some of his interviews here and here - the last done by my buddy Lynn over at Reality Expoits. I’m sure other interviews will pop […]
Survivor: Micronesia - Secret Negotiations We Didn’t See
Feb 24, 2008 at 11:26 am
[…] In our talk with Yau-Man on Friday, he mentioned that he and Cirie had talked about aligning before the tribal counsel, but she had not been convinced. Here’s a clip of that conversation. […]
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