Read on for my interview with Hai, and make sure to check in with Parade.com every day for interviews with this season’s contestants and other tidbits. Survivor 42 premieres on March 9 with a special two-hour premiere on CBS.
Interview with Hai from Survivor 42
Why are you here on Survivor? I am doing Survivor because it’s a lifelong dream of mine. I’ve been watching the show since I was eight. For me, the show has such significance because I immigrated to the U.S. when I was three years old from Vietnam as a refugee. Growing up, we were very poor, and my parents worked seven days a week. As a result, I was often left alone. I’m a latchkey kid, meaning that I let myself in after school by myself. I would supervise everything that I did from a very young age. I don’t recommend it. Always find a babysitter if you can. (Laughs.) But for better or worse, I was raised in front of a television screen. And Survivor was at the forefront of my childhood development, as weird as that sounds. But fortunately, I think Survivor as a series does such a great job at highlighting and sharing the voices of such diverse people and communities. It was so influential to me as a young child to be exposed to that. When you grow up poor, you don’t really have the means to explore the world. And the show allowed me to see such a variety of people that existed and allowed me the chance to travel and see these beautiful views that I couldn’t access within the confines of our apartment. So this is a lifelong dream. But it’s also fulfilling this sense of adventure that’s been instilled in me from such a young age. What’s your history with watching Survivor? What interested me most on TV were stories about real people. Unlike other little kids, I didn’t really like cartoons or these shows that were designed just to entertain you. (Laughs.) I liked to learn. I always like documentaries, things related to reality. I know reality TV is in its own special category. But I think Survivor was so interesting from a storytelling standpoint. And it really helped build my sense of emotional and social intelligence. In your everyday life, you don’t really encounter people trying to deceive you, steal from you, or lie to you. (Laughs.) For the most part, the people you meet in your everyday life are good-hearted people. So there’s this part of emotional and social intelligence that you need to learn from being betrayed and lied to that I picked up from Survivor, and it really helped make me a more astute child. Let me give you an example of why that helped me. Both of my parents did not speak a lick of English when we came over to the U.S. And by default, I was their translator in any sort of social capacity. So, as a result, having to translate for my parents from such a young age, I had to pick up the social skills very early in my development. And Survivor was really helpful at doing that. Give me one Survivor winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most. I’ll start with non-winner. She is in my opinion, the embodiment of strength, empathy, and just joy: Tasha Fox from Survivor: Cagayan and Second Chances. Watching her on my TV screen was so fun because she was just a positive light in an already fun season. But she stood out to me because she is just strength. Like she doesn’t even have to say anything. Looking at her physicality, the way that she carries herself with confidence. She is just strong. And I really relate to that because my favorite people in my life are strong women. And just her bubbly, effervescent personality was to me everything that I hope I experience on the island. Would you want to be stuck on an island with people trying to vote you out with bad personalities, or stuck on an island with people trying to vote you out with great personalities? I think there’s a huge distinction there. So that’s why Tasha is my favorite non-winner. My favorite winner’s also from a similar vein, a very strong, empathetic woman. Natalie Anderson, in my opinion–and this is controversial–played the best winning game of our modern era. Watching her San Juan del Sur season back was interesting because she played a less visible role at the beginning of the season than I remember. Her game was a slow burn game. She sat there meticulously understood and made these interpersonal connections and then understood how they all worked within her entire tribe. And then she made her attack. She sat there and planned her attack when the numbers were right. And she played such a fun, fascinating endgame. To me, her physicality, her quiet demeanor, it all just radiates with strength, and I love her. What’s one life experience you feel has prepared you most for the game? I can’t pinpoint exactly just one life experience that has prepared me most for Survivor. My life is, to this point, a culmination of adversities that prepared me mentally, emotionally, and physically. I grew up very poor after my family immigrated to the U.S. My parents worked seven days a week to provide for me, all hours of the day; I was often left to fend for myself. Growing up, even as recently as high school, we struggled financially. I didn’t always have access to food regularly. And as a result, I was often very underweight; I was picked on a lot because of that. I didn’t have the most confidence either. Truthfully, I didn’t really have friends until the latter half of high school. So I was often alone. A lot of my childhood was spent very nervous and anxious about where my next meal was coming from and what would happen in a few years down the road. It was very unstable. But even though I had to overcome all of these adversities, I’m happy, All of these experiences make me the strong man I am today, and I wouldn’t change any of that for her a million dollars. (Laughs.) What do you think people will perceive you as? I hope people perceive me to be a good person, despite the fact that I’m going to make decisions that are hurtful towards other players. The Hai back home is kind, empathetic, diplomatic. But that’s not the Hai that signed up for this show. (Laughs.) That’s not what any of these contestants have signed up for. We signed up to play a game of deceit, lies, betrayals, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. I always have to keep in the back of my mind that this is a competition. And you have to do what you have to do in a competition without crossing certain personal boundaries. My hope is that the fans of the show understand the decisions that I need to make from a game point and don’t harbor any personal resentment towards me as a result of taking out their personal favorites. Because guess what? I’m going to take out your favorite players because I have to, to win the game! (Laughs.) What do you desire in an alliance partner? It’s actually such a tricky question. I fully expect to come into the game with no allegiances in the long term. I think watching the show as a superfan, sometimes it gets really boring to watch a straight Pagonging of one tribe by another tribe simply because they have the numbers. I don’t think arbitrarily-set starting tribes should dictate the entire course of the game. I want to work with people that I like, that I enjoy, that I could see myself working with for the longevity of the game. To me, those factors for who I want to work with depend on our commonalities, our shared life experiences, and where we intersect as people. I’m open to working with anybody. But the connections that I want to make are with people who I feel fundamentally share the same values as me. As a result, I don’t have any allegiances to my default starting tribe. I’m going to keep an open mind and play a fluid game with people that I like. So my ideal partner, whether it’s for 26 days or two days, is someone that I enjoy and want to work with. What’s the best advice you received before coming out to play? The best piece of advice that I received was from my partner. I love him, but living in a studio apartment with him over the course of the pandemic was really rough. I butted heads a lot with my partner because we both had to work from home all of a sudden. And as a result, I had to do a lot of listening. I’m an astute person, which means I inwardly know how I’m coming off or how others are perceiving me. But that doesn’t mean that I am analytical enough to understand how my decisions are impacting other people until they tell me sometimes. As a result of living with my partner, the pandemic really helped me take a step back and listen to his criticisms and comments. Because even though I didn’t perceive these things, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t reality for him. So just learning through active listening really was the best advice that I received prior to coming onto the show. Because I’m coming on to the island with 18 different personalities that I need to juggle. And if I’m not capable of shutting my mouth and listening to other people, I’m missing half of the story. There are 18 protagonists here; I’m not the only one. So if I come into this game thinking that my story is the only story being told, I’m going to lose, and I’m going to crash in a ball of fire. (Laughs.) What celebrity or fictional character would you want to come out for a Loved Ones visit? This is such a fun question! This is for all my literary fans out there, Ignatius J. Riley from A Confederacy of Dunces. He is probably the most absurd protagonist antihero in any fictional work ever that’s won a Pulitzer Prize. It’s a book that takes place in New Orleans, which is where I’m from. And first of all, the book is just brilliant, comedic, and so enjoyable. I brought it here during our pregame so I could reread it. Ignatius is the epitome of “don’t judge a book by its cover.” He is just crude and ridiculous and so offensive. But he also resonates such a deep intelligence that is so lovely and poignant. If you’re able to look past this monstrous demeanor, there’s something beautiful underneath. And I think having him come out here would be so fun and entertaining. Everyone would just be like, “Why? Why are you? Why is this guy your friend?” Next, check out our interview with Survivor 42 contestant Daniel Strunk.
