“I Didn’t Think I Would Be a Threat So Early in the Game” – An Interview with Survivor: Micronesia’s Yau-Man

Yau-Man is a popular contestant – truly a favorite among the Favorites. But he is actually surprised at how popular he is. What’s not surprising, though, is that he reads my columns on RealityNewsOnline, so that’s good!

Jumping into the interview questions, Yau-Man thought that, compared to Fiji, “Mentally, I was a lot more prepared for it because I have gone through the experience. But physically, it was a lot tougher and the challenges were a lot more physical. Also, the weather was not cooperating – it was horrible. We’re talking a downpour two or three times a day.”

With the preparation he mentioned, did he think the Favorites went into the game with an advantage, or too much confidence? He points to overconfidence, saying, “We didn’t spend enough time in challenges strategizing. We said, ‘We know what we’re doing,’ and then we went on to lose it. That was not good.”

Indeed, he added, “The Favorites went in a little bit too cocky. We put up a nice shelter and made fire and found food, but in the challenge we were thumbing our nose at them.”

Speaking of the challenges, it turns out we didn’t even see the whole of how brutal Thursday night’s reward challenge was. In fact, it was supposed to be the best two out of three! “But the first round took 45 minutes. Forty minutes into it without a winner, the producers said can we do just one round. Everybody agreed.”

And the conditions themselves were even worse than we knew. “Under the water was not sand but broken coral. So a couple people who didn’t wear shoes were in trouble. When we were holding down the pillows, our knees were cut up. I’m glad they changed the rules and said, ‘This round is it.’ We were not going to last best two out of three!”

And how did he do, personally? “At one point, someone tried to keep my head under water – I don’t know who it was. Eliza started screaming, ‘They’re trying to drown Yau-Man!’ They stopped the game and said no holding people’s heads under water.”

Moving on to strategy, Yau-Man had plenty to say about the situation he was in. In some ways, he blames himself. As he said he realized, “I’m not a people person, I don’t read people very well. I should have got to know her better and faster, but I didn’t realize what a strong personality she has. She went from a defensive position to an offensive position in getting everyone to go along with her.”

When he was questioned about how he could say he doesn’t read people well, given how he did on Fiji, he stood his ground, saying he doesn’t do it “as well as I should.” He added, “In Fiji I was able to play under the radar, the weak old man. But here I was a big target coming in, and I had a target on my back right away and was unable to form solid enough alliances to keep myself in the game.”

Speaking of that target, I asked Yau-Man about the reason for Cirie wanting to get rid of him. In particular, she seemed to want him out on the basis that the longer he was in the game, the more dangerous he would become. Yau-Man agreed, “but I was surprised she would think that so early in the game. We were not even close to merging yet and I didn’t think I would be a threat so early in the game. I thought I would be able to convince her that because I can play the game so well, that she would be better off aligning with me and my allies.”

So why did he think Cirie flipped? “I don’t know – I’m trying to figure out why. She felt my alliance with Jonathan was too strong. For some reason she got into a big fight with Jonathan and they were recounting each other’s evil deeds during their seasons. When they were showing Cook Islands, I was filiming Fiji, so I didn’t know all the things Jonathan did. So when he approached me, I was happy to do so. He’s an older guy and has a family and we have a lot in common. There were four of us and we were hoping to bring Cirie. I thought it was obvious she would do better with us. But for some reason, not only did she not want to align with us, basically because of Jonathan. Also, she was afraid if I got an immunity idol, I would go all the way.”

Following up on the Jonathan/Cirie issue, I asked Yau-Man why it seemed Jonathan did all the arguing for Yau-Man, including at Tribal Council. Yau-Man said, “I did most of my arguing one-to-one before we went to Tribal Council. I spent a lot of time one-to-one trying to convince her that she had a better chance going with me than the other guys. I even promised her that if I made it to Exile Island that I would share [the immunity idol] with her. I went as far as letting her know there was a hidden alliance with Earl and I [on Fiji, that nobody else knew about at the time] and we could play it that way. I did everything I thought I could to try to convince her the way we were going to vote.”

Ah, but did he really do everything? I had to ask: Did he consider offering to trade Cirie a car for her vote? “I didn’t have a car to offer. If I had a car I would have to probably done that too!”