They were in the lead at the start of the finale of The Amazing Race 12, but they didn’t end up that way. Father and daughter, Ronald Hsu and Christina Hsu, finished just behind the eventual winners of the race to come in second place. Still they lasted longer than most people thought given that they always seemed to be arguing with each other. I had the chance to talk to them both about their experiences on the show and they really had a lot of insight. Here is what they had to say…
Josh Clinton: Hey guys.
Christina Hsu: Hey Josh. What’s Up?
Ronald Hsu: Hi.
JC: How are you doing?
RH: Good. Thank you.
CH: Good. How are you?
JC: I’m doing good as well. So were you both fans of The Amazing Race before you got on the show?
RH: Oh yeah, we were dedicated fans. I was a longer fan. When season one came along I had seen snippets of it when I was traveling and was trying to get it on a regular basis, but it was moving around from different timeslots. So after season five, I introduced the show to Christina and she got hooked on it as well.
CH: Yeah, season five when Chip and Ken won, my dad and I got hooked and we have been diehard fans ever since. We have great respect for the show.
JC: Who decided that you should be a team on the race then?
CH: Four years ago, believe or not Josh, in the basement of our family den’s whiteboard I wrote Amazing Race 2007. I wrote 2007 because I had always joked with my dad about doing the race, and he said “I would only do it after you finish your Masters program.” I knew I was going to graduate in 2007. Then 2007 rolls along, we created a “Who’s Your Daddy?” audition tape and we sent in the application. We thought it was a pipe dream. We didn’t put too much hope on it, but sure enough we got a call back and the rest is history. We were one of the 11 lucky teams to go race around the world. I definitely did the coaxing to get my dad to do it, but he ultimately introduced the race to me so there would be no other person I would want to do it with.
JC: Right. Ron, you have been compared to a louder Yau Man of Survivor: Fiji. Have you heard that comparison before?
RH: No, I haven’t. I’m familiar with Yau Man. But he seems louder?
JC: No, some people have called you the louder version of him.
CH: (Laughs).
RH: (Laughs). Yeah, Yau Man is definitely quieter and more intellectual. I’m a louder guy. I tend to yak more than him.
CH: My dad’s a very passionate person if you haven’t picked that up yet.
JC: Right, exactly. Christina, what would you say were your dad’s biggest strengths in the race?
CH: My dad had a lot of strengths in the race. Just his perseverance. He raced with a hernia. He just powered through it and never quit. His incredible determination to finish each leg strong. But most importantly, I think his biggest strength is that he is constantly working towards self-improvement. He is a person that believes in evolving and listening and gaining feedback, and becoming a better person. I’m so grateful that he met me halfway and changed his habits for me. But I have been just incredibly proud of his performance, not just on a physical level but also an emotional level. When we were in Burkina Faso, he whipped out some French phrases. I had no idea that my dad spoke French. He never ceases to surprise me.
JC: Yeah. Ron, did you realize how much you brought up your hernia? In almost every episode, it seemed like you brought it up. I know it was painful, but did you realize how much you mentioned it on the show?
RH: No. The most painful of it was after Amsterdam, checking into the pit stop, I had a sleepless night because I kept rolling around. So when the doctor came in and pushed it back in, it was painful to run around in Amsterdam. But once we got some healing time on the long flight to Burkina Faso and Lithuania and others, I felt that I wasn’t dwelling on it too much. I was just concerned mainly that I didn’t want it to pop out, since the doctor told me to pace myself. I asked him if I needed to withdraw from the race. He said “no, but you need to watch it, because if it does pop out you can seriously injure yourself to the point where you need immediate surgery.” So I was basically monitoring it. I didn’t want to dwell on it too much, but I was concerned when I ran long, arduous legs that I might aggravate it to a point where I had to stop the race entirely. I didn’t want to stop at all, if I could, so I trying to avoid being eliminated.
JC: Right. What is your condition like now?
RH: Right now, the doctor has done a complete sonogram and it has healed back. I’m okay and I don’t need to have surgery to put this gortex mesh on. If I wanted to travel in a distant part of Africa where I went through a lot of exertion, he would recommend it. But for now, if I’m staying put in the States, he feels it doesn’t need surgery right now.
JC: Well that’s good. Christina, how much do you blame yourself for what happened in the final challenge?
CH: When we finished the race and came home, like any team who does not cross that finish line first, you replay the scenes in your head. What you could have done? In real time, when I finished the challenge and rounded the corner and didn’t see TK waiting for Rachel anymore, my heart dropped. I was devastated. I really felt that I had let my team down. My dad was so supportive and positive. He reminded me to keep my chin up and keep racing. Never give up.
How much do I blame myself? It’s interesting that you bring that up. I was a little demoralized after I finished the road block. I was told that I finished it five minutes behind Rachel. But what you didn’t see on the finale, we actually had a cab driver from the roadblock to Captain Cook’s statue that drove us forty minutes out of the way. So we were delayed forty minutes and that was a really tough time, because I had known that I had already delayed us with the roadblock, but now to delay us forty more minutes out of the way really sealed the deal for us in terms of losing our lead. When we hit the finish line mat, we were told that we came in 15 to 20 minutes behind TK and Rachel.
I think what stung a little, watching it, was that I almost had the roadblock on the first go. Nick and Rachel hadn’t appeared yet to start the roadblock at all. So because I was so sure that I had the right strategy, and because of the nature of the puzzle, if you change one thing it’s a chain reaction and it changes everything. So I started doubting my initial strategy and started over-thinking things. That was frustrating, because I love puzzles and brainteasers. I had it and was just a hair away. If I had stuck with my initial strategy we would have had it. But who knows, we could have gotten out of that roadblock earlier but still have that cab driver who drove us forty minutes out of the way. So initially I was hard on myself, but my dad told me “to not even worry about it”. It was nobody’s fault, but we are so thankful with how fortunate we had been to make it to the final three. I’ve learned not to dwell on it, thanks to my dad’s support.
JC: Well that’s good. So when Rachel completed the puzzle, how much of a lead did she have on you?
CH: I finished the puzzle about five minutes after her.
RH: Five to eight minutes.
CH: Yeah. So from that point that was where we were. So who knows what would have happened.
RH: They had a better cab driver.
CH: TK and Rachel are a very lucky and strong team, and we are happy that they were able to enjoy the race together.
JC: Yeah. When you go into the finale with a lead like you had, how difficult is the pressure to maintain the lead? Like would it be better to go into the final leg in second place so that you know you have to beat another team rather than trying to maintain the first position you were in?
CH: I think there is ample pressure. There is definitely pressure to maintain the lead. Maybe that contributed a little to how I reacted at the roadblock. But yeah, if we had started out the leg second we could have taken over the lead and vice-versa. But the great thing about this race is anything can happen in a second and it can change the game. Even though we weren’t in the positive end of things in the final leg, my dad and I have a lot of respect for the game. At the end of the day, it’s a game. It was thrilling every second.
RH: Yeah, it was one where I felt getting into Alaska with that lead was pretty helpful because we were able to get out to the airport first and being in the front of the airplane. So that helped us and motivated us. But it was the luck the draw with that taxi driver in the end, because we had to switch different cabs. If we had kept that one taxi that we first initially had, who knew Anchorage like the back of his hand, that would have been great. But unfortunately we had to switch cabs because of the different places we had to go to.
JC: What was the toughest leg of the race for you?
RH: For me personally, the toughest leg was the Amsterdam leg where for two consecutive nights I didn’t have much sleep. I was very fatigued and we were dead last getting into the bike park area. I was just stressed out to not demoralize Christina by being eliminated. It was so early in that leg of the race that I wanted to make sure that we were not in that position and we were. It was one where it was hard for me to watch in me trying to help us get out of there. What I said. The message just got lost in the way that I delivered it.
CH: Yeah. In Amsterdam we were facing elimination and we hadn’t gotten any sleep two nights before. But that was a pivotal leg for us, Josh. We argued and had our conflicts, but after we hit the mat with Phil, who we like to call “Dr. Phil”, we really started just talking through it. We broke it down and talked about how we didn’t want to put the race over our relationship. We wanted to improve and we discussed how we could meet each other halfway and change our strategies immediately so that we had better teamwork going forward. So we didn’t find our groove immediately, but sure enough we did and it got us to the final three. So we’ve come a long way from Amsterdam, and that definitely was our hardest leg of the race.
JC: Yeah, definitely. Do you think it’s impossible for a team that has an older member on it to win the race? Since clearly TK and Rachel had a physical advantage, and even though the final challenge was mostly mental, it still came down to a footrace.
RH: Having physical prowess has an advantage, but I think you just have to use all of your resources that you have and exploit them. Like your language skills and the ability to get the best airline fight and those sorts of things. So I think older people should still try. It’s a testimonial with this season where grandpa was near 70 and did a wonderful job with Nick, his grandson, as a team. They were very formidable challengers. We came in with my issues with the hernia, and in fact grandpa does a lot more exercising than I do. He belongs to a gym I believe. So he can bench press more than I can. But the thing is your question about older people not being competitive can be compensated by the fact that they can think and work smarter, and on those legs where they have to run they have to think of how they can run without their backpack or put in a different place or whatever. There are places where they can compete head-on with the younger races. But we just have to think smarter I think.
JC: Right. Have either of you learned something about the other person that you didn’t know before the race?
RH: I have learned how level-headed my daughter is and how patient she is. So I’m very happy that the nurturing aspect she got especially from my wife’s side, and has been able to deal with my certain moments of delivery. I’m just very proud of her ability to be patient and work with me particularly to get us to the final three.
CH: But I’ve learned some valuable lessons from my dad. Also, I was incredibly impressed by his sheer determination and endurance, and willingness to work with me and improve. It was definitely a two-way street. We both taught each other a lot through the race. Not only was I impressed by his perseverance and the depth of his character, I didn’t know he could run that fast. I didn’t know he could speak French in Burkina Faso. I was surprised many points along the way, and I would have ever learned the things I learned about him if not for the race.
JC: Yeah, exactly. So what’s next for you guys?
CH: We are actually auctioning off our “Who’s Your Daddy?” T-shirts and our “Tiger Father Tiger Daughter” T-shirts. In Burkina Faso, Josh, we spent two legs there and we made some really good friends in the villages there. So if you go to the Amazing Race homepage on CBS.com, you can find the link to our E-Bay auction site. We promise that all the shirts have been washed. They have only been worn around the world for the race. All of the earnings are going to be donated to an orphanage in Burkina Faso. So if you can help us spread the word about that, that would be awesome.
JC: Yeah, will do. That sounds very cool. Well thanks for your time and good luck with everything.
CH: Thank you.
RH: Take care Josh.
– The Amazing Race airs on CBS in the U.S. on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
– The Amazing Race airs on the CTV network in Canada on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
