‘Survivor: Cagayan’ interview: Woo Hwang on Tony, ninja stealth mode, and aspirations

So we’re here finally at the end of the road with “Survivor: Cagayan,” and our final exit interview from the show is with a guy in “Woo” Hwang who has the sort of outlook on life that most of us should be jealous of. He had some very entertaining moments in the game, and this made for a pretty fun interview after the fact.

Some of the more interesting things that we got to learn in here include that he actually fell from a tree more than once when he was out there, that he and Sarah were the original swing votes in the Brawn alliance, and also his feelings now about the way that the show ended, and him coming in second place to Tony Vlachos. We really wish we could channel some of his energy and enthusiasm in some of these responses, especially the ones near the end.

CarterMatt – Going into the game, was there any specific strategy that you wanted to implement?

[In life] I know that I’m outspoken, and I bring a lot of attention towards me. That’s one thing that I didn’t want to do in the game because being a martial arts instructor I could be perceived as a threat or a target. For me, a big strategy was to align myself with the majority alliance. I’m naturally a leader, but when I was on Tony’s majority alliance after the swap, I just wanted to play the team player role. I feel like I did a great job of that; it took me to the end.

What was the feeling like for you when Cliff went home? It was obviously right before the merge, and you were a physical threat and an easy person to target.

Cliff gets blindsided; I was blindsided myself, and [on the bottom] and there’s an immunity challenge coming up. You don’t know what they’re thinking. They may say that [I’m top five with them], but I’m like ‘that’s great, but if we lose who are you voting off?’ So I felt vulnerable, and when I won that immunity challenge I was happy. Then after the merge, I felt like I could dictate my course of fate in this game.

Let’s talk about you and Tony early in the game [before the merge], because I’ve heard that there were times that you two were close.

I was [close to him]. I was thinking of going with two different options. I had Cliff and Lindsey, and then there was Trish and Tony. Me and Sarah were kind of flip-flopping between the two before Sarah went on Tony’s side.

We were close, but you heard what he said [at that point in the game]. He thought I was a weasel in this game, [because] Tony would come up to me [after a conversation with Cliff] and be like ‘what is he saying,’ and I would say ‘it’s not anything majorly important, don’t worry about it because we’re all good,’ and then I guess he thought of me as a weasel.

Do any of the comments that you hear in the confessionals get to you?

No. You gotta look beyond small, petty comments. What Spencer said to me at [final] tribal council, I look at that as entertainment. I got a great laugh out of that. Tony calls me a weasel, Trish calls me a weasel, whatever. Or me and Cliff were like Batman and Robin, or I was Scottie Pippen to his Michael Jordan. All those things towards me, I looked at it as pure fun and enjoyment.

Let’s talk about that scary fall you had out of the tree. How much did that affect you out there?

It was sore for a few days, I’m not gonna lie. Dr. Ramona came, she was extremely concerned. It’s so funny, because they didn’t air that I fell from the same tree [when I was with Tony]. So I fell twice from 15 feet up. My butt was sore, you’re suffering from chafing going on and now you have a swollen tailbone and you can’t sleep. You’re sleeping on bamboo. Life was difficult but I managed to pull through.

Did that injury impact you on any of the those challenges? I would think the longer you stood in place, the more the pain from it would start to come in.

The challenges, you are running off such adrenaline that even if your legs are decapitated you don’t feel it. You’re in the zone. So no, I wouldn’t say that it effected me at all because I was in the zone. That immunity challenge with the balls that Tash won, some people asked ‘did your butt effect you,’ and I was like ‘no.’ I just couldn’t catch my balance.

So let’s talk about you and Spencer’s idol clue, since there was so much good stuff in here with Ninja Stealth Mode and the Sonic the Hedgehog reference. Was everything you did there completely on the fly? Did you ever think something like that could happen?

It’s funny, because I was such a team player that I decided to tell my team ‘listen guys, we got the advantage and the numbers. Let’s just make sure that we will supervise these people and make sure they don’t go sneaking off by themselves.’ When that went down, I was just like ‘I’m going to follow him.’ I was being real sneaky, until all of a sudden I was like 12 years old sneaking up on my sister again. I was being a ninja, I was being stealthy, and then running my tail off like Sonic the Hedgehog. Boom! I was gone.

Now that all of this is over, how are you feeling? I know it was a crazy ending, but you got second place and I’m sure you have to at least be happy with that.

You know what, to win or lose, the fact that I even got a chance to play the game was an accomplishment. The fact that I got to step on the stage with the four-time Emmy Award-winning host Jeff Probst, you can’t put a price tag on it. I’ll cherish that and that’s me; it’s priceless.

So what’s next for you? I’m assuming that you’re going to become a lot busier as a martial arts instructor after this.

Yeah, absolutely. I’m going to continue what I’ve been doing, but I also have aspirations of someday working in film and TV. I aspired to be Bruce Lee when I was younger, so I would love to get an opportunity to go side by side with Denzel, with Jet Li or Jackie Chan and make that blockbuster action film.