On Tuesday night Cao Boi Bui had his kooky torch snuffed out of Survivor Cook Islands after he unsuccessfully tried to implement his Plan Voodoo to uncover the hidden Immunity Idol.
Hoping that Aitu would cast equal votes for both Jonathan and Candice to force them to reveal the Idol if they had it, Cao Boi was voodoo'd out instead when everyone except Flica voted for him.
I caught up with him for us to find out why he insisted on annoying everyone with his Asian jokes and scoop out how he does that headache thing.
Here's what he had to outwit, outlast, outtalk and talk and talk:
Tashi: Your nickname Cao Boi - how did you get it? Does it mean you’re a Cowboy?
Cao Boi: When I was little in Vietnaam in the Old Country, we used to watch Western movies - John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and so-and-so and we’d hear “cowboy” but we didn’t understand English. Coi means “tall”, Boi means “man” in French so “tall man with an attitude”.
Tashi: So it does actually mean cowboy.
Cao Boi: Yeah - cowboy is a tall man with an attitude, it actually does have similar meanings. In Vietnamese it has a negative connotation, it’s kind of like a gangster - I’m kinda tall for Vietnamese and I have an attitude. It was a street nickname that I got in the neighbourhood.
Tashi: Plan Voodoo - it obviously failed because Aitu was so madly annoyed and irritated by you that they chose to get rid of you instead of other players who were more dangerous in terms of strategy. Is that what happened?
Cao Boi: (laughs) Well, I irritate everybody - you either love me or you hate me that’s all there is to it. Koreans just don’t like Vietnamese or something. I was a threat to two Koreans and I think that comes first - first and foremost I was threat to them.
By getting rid of me they were making sure Becky didn’t get into trouble. I voted Cecilia off because she was sick and covered in bug bites - she was just not in a good shape to continue the game but if she was in good shape I would have voted Becky because I Becky was a weak point.
Tashi: The way you insisted on shooting yourself in the mojo by going on and on with your Asian jokes when you knew your tribe wanted to slap you for them - why didn’t you just try to irritate them less - even if you had to act?
Cao Boi: (laughs) What else was I gonna do? I mean the weather was - the stars were out by the billions, it was 18h30 in the Southern hemisphere and the sun set and everyone goes to sleep like chickens. I can’t sleep at that time.
They were all like miserable and I was happy and they didn’t like that so I thought: “Why not? I’ll just needle them for a little bit.” I was like, “Cheer up people, gosh - a joke is not a joke.”
Tashi: Strategically that was a very bad idea.
Cao Boi: Oh, that’s okay, strategic or not, it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t know much about Survivor when I first got on the show - I don’t own a TV myself - I’m not a strategy kinda guy. I guess hindsight 20/20, if I ever do it again I’ll take the gloves off - how’s that?
Tashi: Well this is what I’m thinking - what would you do differently if you did again?
Cao Boi: I still don’t know what I’d do. You can’t plan for these things because you don’t know what kind of characters you’re going to be dealing with. The best made plan has the chance to go wrong because of Murphy’s Law. I’d take the gloves off and scheme with the best of them. That’s what I’d do differently – I’d go behind everyone’s back and talk and scheme a little bit.
Tashi: So who would you scheme with? Which of them would you want to make a key alliance with?
Cao Boi: Oh, Flica and Ozzy - those were my two buds, I really liked them a lot.
Tashi: When you got attached to the Immunity Idol - did you do that so you could intimidate the other tribe? Was Jonathan right about that?
Cao Boi: Oh no, I think Jonathan was looking for a point to bring to cause an argument so he could test the water. Jonathan is very intelligent man and he played the game brilliantly.
Tashi: So what was your relationship with the Immunity Idol like?
Cao Boi: Well I really believed we’d won it, it was like an extra member of our tribe - it’s in the shape of a person. But I sat there and looked at it and the darn thing was castrated - it doesn’t have a penis so it has no power at all, my mistake. (laughs)
You know the god of Cook Islands is called Tangarowa - Tangarowa is the god of fertility and he fathered the sky and that’s what the shape of the Immunity Idol was but they castrated him so - oh well.
I was on Cook Islands and I thought: “Here’s Tangarowa who represents a god - why not pay a little respect to him?”
Tashi: When you volunteered to go to Exile Island - was it to the find the Immunity Idol?
Cao Boi: I volunteered to go like three times and of course what Jeff finally said was: “Nobody’s gonna send you if you volunteer.”
I mean I’d jump up and down and say: “Send me, send me!” and my tribe said: “No Cao Boi stay with us, you’ve got to stay strong.” And I said: “No no no - I want to go, I want to get away from you guys - you guys don’t like me and I’m just the outsider among your group, I just wanna go to get away from you, get a break - how’s that?” They were: “No no, we love you, you’re part of us, stay with us.” and I said: “Nah, BS.” I wanted to get out but nobody sent me.
Tashi: When did you realize that Yul has the Idol?
Cao Boi: I didn’t know it at all - I just thought one of them got it. Yul basically came to me and said: “I want to see all the Asian people go to the final five,” and I believed it and thought he was an upstanding person. I figured Jonathan’s been there, Candice has been there – let’s just try it out and at the same time we can try to eliminate one of the white alliance because I really believed they were going to try to get back together somehow.
Tashi: You only realized he had it when you watched the show?
Cao Boi: Yeah and I said: “Good for you, excellent.”
Tashi: When you were talking in your tribe about how you were all from different generations and from different perspectives despite all being Asian - do you think you were expecting all the members of your tribe to be the same as you and didn’t give them enough credit for being who they are?
Cao Boi: I expected them to know at least a little bit about where they come from and have a sense of honour. Jenny was awesome, she does a lot of things with the Fillpino community - she knows a lot more about her community than the others.
To me Koreans are angry people - they’re always so angry all the time (laughs) and they’re very prejudiced and I kind of suspected that too.
Tashi: Why was it important to you that they had a connection with their roots or whatever?
Cao Boi: I don’t consider myself an Asian person - I’m an oriental. In my generation when you say Oriental it doesn’t conjure up an image of a rug. In my mind I see an exotic land and people. I’m not an Asian because I have nothing in common with an Indian or Pakistani as far as Asian goes - it’s just a big voting block that these modern people conjure up to scare politicians but if you know how fragmented the Asian community is, they don’t scare anybody. There’s no unity there, it doesn’t scare nobody.
Tashi: Do you think there should be unity?
Cao Boi: If there was another Chinese or Japanese person there it would have been fine instead of loading it with two Koerans, two Filipino and one Vietnamese - I was at a disadvantage right there.
Tashi: Everybody was very aware of stereotypes etc - what did you think about the way the tribes were divided?
Cao Boi: Stereotypes show themselves eventually and I thought a bunch of my Asian tribemates were so stereotypical of a typical Asian person you meet on the street. I meet many of them as I travel - they all act the same way. They’re all very intelligent, they’re all computer geeks and maths experts and martial arts experts – they’re all the same. They haven’t disproved anything.
Concerning the other races, I loved the way the show was divided into race - I think Mark Burnett was far ahead of his time - somebody’s got to do it, nobody’s done it and we do have a race issue. Why sweep it under the rug and act like it doesn’t exist? That’s not right.
The race issue does exist in this country, let’s not look at everyone and say: “We’re all American.” Nobody can define what the word American is around here - if you haven’t defined it, how can you say we’ll all Americans? You have to look at race for what it, find out what the issues are and resolve them instead of saying “Let’s not talk about it - that stuff it doesn’t exist.
Tashi: Is that why you kept telling your jokes?
Cao Boi: Yeah, (laughs) - you have one platform to speak from and you have to speak from your heart and say what you believe. That’s more than a million dollars.
Tashi: Did you have your mind set on winning?
Cao Boi: I just played the game and did what I could, I didn’t really think about it. It was such an adventure, I live my life like that - the million dollars was just a bonus. If you win it wonderful, that’s a bonus but if you don’t it’s okay - there’s a boat to jump off of. That was awesome - whenever I hear Survivor music, it brings back all these memories - jumping off that boat, it was just like: “Wow.”
Tashi: Your headache remedy - I tried it on myself last week but all I ended up with a sore bit between my nose - what’s the secret?
Cao Boi: You need a master - you need someone to teach you to do properly. It takes a lot of experience, you got to diagnose it and see what kind of headache it is - there are some headaches where nothing’s going to help it except IB Profen. It’s a certain headache, you’ve got to know it’s a bad wind headache – no doctor can cure you if he doesn’t know what the problem is.
Tashi: How do you know if it’s a bad wind headache?
Cao Boi: Well, I said in the show, the pain is the front and usually there’s some sinus involved - especially if you look at someone who’s been out in the sun and water and you touch their head and feel the temperature and pressure points it tells you if they’re balanced or not – that’s what tells you the kind headache the person has - you can feel it.
Tashi: So if you think you’ve got one - what tips can you give us to do what you did? I just sort of whooshed my hands across my forehead and pulled.
Cao Boi: I’m not with you to diagnose what type of headache it - I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do. Sometimes it’s really simple - all you need to do is take a teaspoon of honey in room temperature water, wash your face and within five to ten minutes your headache could be gone.
Tashi: When I was watching my theory was that it works because it’s so sore you just forget about your headache and that’s how it works.
Cao Boi: (Laughs) That’s the indicator - the deeper the red, the worse you have it.
Tashi: What else can you cure?
Cao Boi: I repair people - doesn’t matter what the ailment is I usually have a remedy for it - their arms, their legs, their backs, acid reflex, their dislocations, bruises - whatever, I can fix them all. I never charge a penny - I’m one of those who works by karma - you have karma, you meet me and you can put up with my cure, I’ll fix you. It’s a gift.
Ends