“It’s a Game and People Are Playing to Win” – An Interview with Survivor: China’s Frosti

One thing I was disappointed out in Frosti’s stay on Survivor was that we really didn’t get to see him use his parkour skills a whole lot. How did Frosti himself feel about that? And how did he feel about Courtney? What was his strategy? Read on to find out all this and more.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Frosti, and thanks for taking the time to talk to RealityNewsOnline! Starting at the beginning, what was your strategy coming into the game?

Frosti: I knew I was going to be – if they found out right away that I did parkour – that I would be more of a physical threat. I thought because I’m young and small, I could try to play a personal game and meet people and talk to them before they found out I would be jumping off things and doing backflips.

But they found it out a lot sooner anyway because my team never did anything. I originally wanted to not be as physical in the earlier part of the game as I was, but I was left to do that because we had such a physical gap between our team and the other one.

RNO: Besides having to show your physicality earlier, how did your strategy change once you got into the game?

Frosti: As soon as I got there, it was really crazy. Especially now as the show has gone for so many seasons and there are so many fans, immediately people were starting to feel out strategy and who they wanted to vote out. Like the first day, Chicken and Dave were talking about making alliances with myself and Peih-Gee. So I had to step up getting close and figuring out who would be an ally and an enemy. It’s really hard when you have to figure out the difference between a friend and an ally. I pushed that really hard.

RNO: If you had made it past this vote, what would your endgame strategy have been?

Frosti: I knew I was definitely not in a safe place. But I thought I was in a safer spot than I was. I knew there were going to be challenges I couldn’t win and some that I could. I wanted to win what challenges I could, but I thought once the old Zhan Hu members – Peih-Gee and Erik – were going to go be gone, I was hoping something similar to what happened earlier, with getting out James, would happen. Once something like that happened with a big switch in the power players, things get a little looser and perhaps my relationship with Courtney would allow me to forge something with Denise, who was at the bottom of the totem pole. The farther you get, the more things change. I thought I could start working with some of those angles.

RNO: I couldn’t wait to see you in action in challenges. But did you feel you ever really got to show your stuff, or were the challenges of the type that didn’t allow you to excel as much?

Frosti: When I signed up and was all excited to do it, everyone was really thinking I would be able to do a lot of great stuff in the challenges and I could really shine and show off. At first I was really upset there weren’t obstacle courses in every challenge and I couldn’t win backflip contests.

But this game isn’t about putting in people who are going to be good at something. So it’s not putting outdoorsmen in Survivor. So if they put me in an obstacle course, it wouldn’t have been as interesting. It’s about putting them in situations they’ve never been in and the struggles of living there. I’m an athlete and used to being well-fed and training and having my own freedom to do what I want. It was about seeing what I could do in that situation, not about what I normally do.

RNO: Is there any ongoing relationship with Courtney?

Frosti: Like we said on the show, we had a really strange relationship. She is obviously older than me and has led a pretty crazy life, and I’ve had a pretty strange life myself. It’s hard to say. She’s a very attractive girl and I was attracted to her and she reminded me of somebody I would be attracted to in normal life. In the jungle, you smell bad, you’re starving – [it’s good] having somebody there that makes you feel comfortable and feel all right to talk about things other than the last moldy egg you had to eat or who you’re planning to backstab with a smile on your face. I’m not going to say, “Oh yeah, true love will blossom forever.” But we were definitely really close.

RNO: On TV, Courtney showed a rather abrasive personality. What attracted you to her?

Frosti: I like somebody that’s going to be in your face and not take any bull from you. She went against her tribe and voted for whoever she wanted. It’s nice to see somebody like that. I’m comfortable with that and have friends like that. I really appreciated her brutal honesty. She puts off that outer image but she’s really a sweetheart, but she wouldn’t tell you that ever.

RNO: You just noted that she went against her tribe before. So were you upset that she would vote you out?

Frosti: It was actually really interesting to me. I was expecting backstabbing, but not necessarily at this time and not necessarily the people who did it. I’m not going to say we had an alliance, but there was a time when we said we felt close enough to say – she told me without me provoking it – that she would tell me if something was going to happen to me. She didn’t tell me, obviously, but Peih-Gee and Erik [said something that tipped me off]. It definitely hurts when somebody has to vote for you, especially with my strategy that involves being very close. But it’s a game and people are playing to win. That’s life – or Survivor.