Survivor: Cook Islands' Cao Boi and Cristina Speak Out

Last week Jeff Probst shocked the members of the two tribes on Survivor: Cook Islands (Thursdays at 8 pm/ET, CBS) by telling them that both tribes would have to send a person home. Raro and Aitu each took the opportunity to get rid of people who they viewed as annoying, eliminating Ahn-Tuan (better known to fans as Cao Boi), who was very vocal about a plan to get the holder of the hidden immunity idol to step forward, and Cristina Coria, a hardworking (yet deemed too-bossy) cop. TVGuide.com asked Cao Boi (pronounced Cowboy) and Cristina about their teams' decisions.

First up, Cao Boi:

TVGuide.com: You seemed like you had fun out there.
Cao Boi: I had a great time. I had an adventure. You never know what is coming around the turn.

TVGuide.com: You are so friendly, were you surprised by how cutthroat the other players were?
Cao Boi: No, I'm just surprised at myself for being so naive. I wouldn't change the friendliness part, but I've got to be more critical and look at things the way they are, and not listen to what they tell me. Somebody would come up to me and say, "I'm Asian and I'm going to watch your back and we're going to get together and stay together until the merge," and I took them at that. I trust them. But I should always be aware.

TVGuide.com: You had a plan to get Jonathan to show whether he had the immunity idol, but it turns out Yul had it.
Cao Boi: One of them had it, so when I found out Yul had it, I thought, "Good for him." At the same time, I was sorry for myself. I volunteered for Exile Island three times. Every challenge, I'm like, "Let me go!"

TVGuide.com: To get the idol?
Cao Boi: No, I just wanted to get away from my tribe.

TVGuide.com: Anyone in particular?
Cao Boi: All of them. They said, "You can't go, Cao Boi." I said, "Why not? You guys don't like me. You think I talk too much and that I'm too hardheaded and crazy or whatever. I'll get away from you guys and take a break. I'll go and have a vacation."

TVGuide.com: Your tribe claimed to vote you off because you were a threat. Do you think you were?
Cao Boi: Eventually, yeah. Lucky for them I didn't make it to the merge because the way I trained for Survivor, I kept myself open for the options. I fast regularly and I was the only vegetarian [on the show]. I didn't eat any meat.

TVGuide.com: Really?
Cao Boi: Yeah. I don't care for Boobies [a reference to his trying to capture one of the local birds]. Well, it depends on what boobies we're talking about. [Laughs] But I would pick up a big hermit crab and say, "Go hide before they eat you." I would hunt for the tribe, but I ate coconut and drank coconut juice. I did eat a little chicken butt and a little fish, just to see what Cook Islands fish taste like. But you've got coconut and palm hearts, which people charge you a million dollars for, and it is all free.

TVGuide.com: Where did you pick up your homeopathic headache cure?
Cao Boi: Practically every Vietnamese [person] from the old country knows that cure, or it has been used on them. It is similar to medical cupping, but since we were a nation at war for so many years, we don't go around carrying a bunch of glass with us. You've got to do what you've got to do, your hands are always handy and you use that. It isn't the cure itself, but the diagnostic, of looking and telling when the bad wind is happening and how to apply the proper cure to it.

TVGuide.com: Do you feel like your team respected your knowledge?
Cao Boi: I don't think so. Curious? Yes, because they've never encountered an Asian person like [me].

TVGuide.com: If you were in a tribe from the start that was mixed races, do you think you would have fit in easier?
Cao Boi: I fit in easy no matter what. But with all Asians I have to be careful with that, because I know from my life experience that they will gang up on me.

TVGuide.com: You made friends with Flicka. Anyone else?
Cao Boi: Flicka and Ozzy. I really like them a lot. And Booty Man, which is Nate. I nicknamed him Booty Man ever since they got the booty of the immunity and he kissed it and goes, "Booty man." When we invaded them, I greeted him as that. I like Nate, though, as a person, and that's about it. I don't mind [the others] at all. People are people; I don't hate them, I just don't care.

TVGuide.com: What are you up to now?
Cao Boi: I manage a nail salon still. I'm at "the Moose" every night. I'm a prelate, a high priest, in the loyal order of Moose Lodge No. 1470. I spend a lot of my time there because they are a wonderful organization.

TVGuide.com: What did your fellow Moose think of you on the show?
Cao Boi: They said it was probably the best thing to happen to the Moose in so long. A lot of people thought that the Moose no longer exists or that it is a bunch of 70-year-old white guys sitting around getting drunk. It is not that. We do a lot of community work.

TVGuide.com: Any regrets at all?
Cao Boi: No. Never. If you have any regrets at all, you aren't going to be able to sleep. I left a lot of it out there on the island.

Next, Cristina:

TVGuide.com: You looked so hurt by the comments your tribe made.
Cristina: Yeah, it's funny. Being a police officer, you think, "OK, nothing can break her." But you know what? Being a police officer doesn't make me a robot I have emotions, I'm a woman, so it just really, really bothered me. I mean, I know it's a game and I know that people are going to be catty, but that was more of a personal thing and me being a police officer overshadowed me being who I am. It's just kind of disappointing and disrespectful how they treated me.

TVGuide.com: Now why exactly did they decide you were annoying?
Cristina: I don't know. At one point when we were paddling, and I told Adam, "We need to go to the right." Adam yelled at me, "I heard you!" and I'm like, "Why are you yelling?" He said, "I'm just annoyed." So he never ever said I'm annoying, just that he was annoyed. Later on when we talked about this whole "annoying" thing after tribal council, he's like, "Yeah, I told you you were annoying," and I was like, "No, you never did. You never once told me you had a problem with me. You guys all made me believe that we were like family and everything's perfect and there are no problems. And all of a sudden, out of the blue, I'm finding out that I'm annoying."

TVGuide.com: What did your friends and family think?
Cristina: They couldn't believe it. I mean, most of the time on the show, they didn't even show me smiling and my personality. I'm always smiling, I'm always happy, I'm always optimistic about everything in life, especially with everything I've gone through, and being on that game, they really edited it quite a bit to make me or portray me to look a certain way.

TVGuide.com: You overcame a lot in your life and as a police officer and everything. Was this just like the craziest thing you've done?
Cristina: I would definitely say it's the craziest thing I've ever done. In my work, I deal with a lot of different things, but it's a very different element or different situation. This is dealing with many personalities, people I don't know anything about; I'm on an island, I'm trying to fend for myself in the sense of looking for food, living, trying to find comfort in the sleeping area. It was a very interesting experience. There was good and bad in it, but it was definitely a wonderful experience. It humbled me in many ways, it made me realize that I have emotions and that I'm a woman and I'm human, and it just brought out the vulnerability in me and brought my walls down, I guess.

TVGuide.com Did you at all for a minute think that the other tribe was going to pick you and kidnap you and save you instead?
Cristina: There was one moment I thought that would be a great opportunity, but then, I figured, they have Ozzy on their team and Ozzy and I didn't really get along, so I felt that maybe at one point, he probably said something to them. During this whole time, I was thinking, "Maybe it would be better off just leaving," because I really didn't want to be part of the tribe I was part of, because they weren't working as a team together.

TVGuide.com: Do you think maybe your original Aitu tribe was cursed by voting Billy off? Because there's only one person left from the Latino tribe now....
Cristina: There's karma in everything. I don't know that there's a curse; I think that... I don't feel that we should have thrown the challenge. That's one thing I did believe we should never have done, but they were going to do what they wanted to do, there was more of them than me and Billy knew why I voted him off, so I don't think it was a curse.

TVGuide.com: What's next for you?
Cristina: I'm back at work, still a police officer, I love my job and I definitely want to use being on Survivor as something that would benefit other people. I want to actually start doing some charity events and raising money for the families of officers who have been killed in the line of duty, and for officers who have been injured in the line of duty. I just think that officers are not appreciated and they're looked down upon, especially in this game. That came out a lot, like in that one fight with Flicka and I, when she made the comment, "This is probably the only time I can kick an officer's ass" or "butt" or something like that. Everyone smiled and laughed about it. It's disappointing that people are like that. Police officers risk their lives everyday in and out for people they don't even know, and yet people are out there still judging them and making fun of them.

Hey, reality-TV fans! The Oct. 30 TV Guide answers your burning questions about Survivor: Cook Islands and shares some Dancing with the Stars scoop.

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