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Congratulations Tammy & Victor winners of TAR 14

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slayton:
Tammy and Victor 'stunned' over 'Amazing Race' win
Tyrone Warner, CTV.ca

Siblings (and lawyers) Tammy and Victor Jih are the latest team to take home the million dollar prize on "The Amazing Race."


The race pits teams against one another as they travel around the world in a quest that challenges the mind, body and spirit.


The winners spoke to CTV.ca about their victory.


CTV.ca: Congratulations on your stunning win!


Victor: I think "stunning" is an appropriate work after seeing how that last leg turned out!


Tammy: We were stunned!


CTV.ca: Tell me, what did it feel like when you were rushing towards that final mat?


Tammy: I felt overwhelmed. We thought we were behind, Margie and Luke seemed like they had such a lead on us. It wasn't until we were leaving that last roadblock that we thought we had a chance at winning.


Victor: Both the cab ride to the last task and the ride away from the last task were the quietest rides we had during the show. The camera crews were asking us, "Um, are you going to say anything?" We were either preparing to lose, or preparing for the possibility we could win.


CTV.ca: What's your relationship like now after the race?


Tammy: The best part about doing the race with a sibling is that no matter what happens, good or bad, when you go home, you're still siblings. Our relationship is stronger, but we were glad that we could finally have some space from each other!


Victor: I should make it clear that she wants one of the big trips, and not with me!


Tammy: We both decided that if we won two trips, we would take them separately!


CTV.ca: There was anything that you regret in the way you treated each other?


Victor: Obviously, my big regret was Romania. I think early on in the show, in stressful situations, my eye was on the prize, it was easy to focus on that at the expense of my sister, regardless of how she was feeling in general.


CTV.ca: Did you get a different perspective when you watched it back on the show?


Victor: Watching yourself on TV is an adventure in itself!


CTV.ca: What has reaction been like from your fans?


Victor: Sometimes I'll be walking down the street, especially in airports, and people always scream out at me, "Victor, be nicer to your sister!" It makes me wonder, how come people don't yell out, "Tammy, listen to your brother!" Absolutely nobody.


CTV.ca: What was it like spending so much time racing in China?


Tammy: I feel that we were so fortunate to visit China on this race. It made our parents so proud to see that, that despite being born and raised in America, that they taught us enough that we'd be comfortable in a place that we'd never live in. Being able to communicate with the locals gave us a sense of ease, but despite that, the first two legs, we still didn't come in first. The race still plays to many different strengths.


Victor: I was glad to have a task that played to our strengths!


CTV.ca: Did you have more incentive to do well, because you didn't want to be the team that was eliminated in China?


Victor: There was a lot of pressure. The whole time I was thinking, "How embarrassing would it be to lose in China?" A couple times we came close!

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/show/CTVShows/20090515/tar_promo_090515/20090515/

slayton:
Siblings run an Amazing Race
By :

2009/05/17
The winners of The Amazing Race Season 14, Victor and Tammy Jih, give the lowdown on how they feel about the unexpected win. PETRINA JO FERNANDEZ writes.

REALITY TV hit an all-time high with Season 14 of The Amazing Race.

Fans saw the final four teams choke on larvae and scorpions, struggle to take food orders in Mandarin, and carry a 65kg pig 182 metres to a beach luau.

Twenty-two days and nine countries later, Asian-American siblings Victor, 36, and Tammy Jih, 27, sweated and grunted their way through as the million-dollar winners, the race was recorded last year and aired from Feb 16 to May 11, this year.

The winners spoke in a telephone interview from California.


On their come-from-behind win.

Victor: It was an absolute shock! After working so hard and feeling so exhausted, the unexpected win was a terrific rush. And I didn’t realise just how many people worldwide, especially in Asia, watch The Amazing Race.

Tammy: I’m still in shock, even though the race was over last year. It was so amazing, I actually cried when I crossed the finish line.



Q: How do you think you represented Asian?

Victor: There were some things we did well and others, not so well. For instance, our synchronised diving skills were definitely not on par with that of an Asian sync swimming team (laughs). But having an Asian background did come in handy. We had an easier time taking orders in Mandarin during our Beijing challenge. I remember saying “If we can’t do this, Mum and Dad will kill us!”



Q: What personal achievements have you made in the course of this race?

Tammy: Well, I’m not particularly co-ordinated, strong or athletic. I have never played sports; I just concentrate on my academic life. I was terribly nervous when I saw how fit the other teams were, especially the girls (laughs). Having competed alongside them, and having won made me a more confident person.

Victor: For me, it was just being in the race. As the eldest son, I felt like I’ve always done what was expected of me. I studied hard, went to law school, became a lawyer. This was my chance to do something that everyone thought was crazy. I never expected to be good at it! It’s great to have my parents proud of me for doing something wild (laughs).



Q: Why did you decide to partner your sibling and what advantages or otherwise did that pose?

Tammy: This is going to hurt my other brother’s feelings (laughs) but I wanted to do this with Victor. He has always been the one pushing me harder, and has been there for me. I knew the race would put us in a lot of difficult situations so I wanted to take this on with someone I trust completely. Victor’s safe to be with because I know him so well. He’s my brother, I love him. Even if we fight like mad, it won’t affect our relationship.

Victor: (Laughs) Siblings are not meant to be “locked” in a cage with each other for 24 hours, let alone 22 days! We did fight like crazy, but deep down, we love each other and that’s what carried us through.



Q: How did you cope, mentally and emotionally?

Victor: It was very hard! The race or the challenges themselves weren’t too difficult; it was the Pit Stops in between that drove us mad. The format of the Pit Stops saw us locked away in our hotel room with only each other for company. We spent most of the time complaining about what we didn’t like about the other person. It was exhaustive! But luckily we did most of the fighting early on in the race and got it over with.

I know Tammy made friends with the cheerleaders’ team (Jaime and Cara) just so she would have someone to complain about me to (laughs).

Tammy: It truly was awful at first but we took it in stride. That’s why I loved being in The Amazing Race with Victor. I told him at least 10 things about him that annoyed me every day but I knew that at the end of the day (or the end of the race, anyway), he’d still love me.



Q: With the cameras on at you all the time, did you feel like superstars?

Tammy: No. I hated it. After all, I was wearing grimy clothes for four weeks. I only had a backpack, was wearing absolutely no make-up, and my hair was in a perpetual mess. I hardly felt like a person, much less a superstar.

Victor: (Laughs) Yeah, Tammy probably hated it more than me. I mean, we were filmed doing gymnastics with our pants off! Every embarrassing moment imaginable was caught on camera. It was hardly superstar material.



Q: Name one must-have item in your backpack.

Tammy: Face lotion. All that running around left my skin horribly parched and dry.

Victor: Clean good underwear (laughs). You don’t want to be captured on camera running around Siberia or somewhere with holes in your underwear.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/Features/20090517212901/Article/indexF_html

slayton:
Their trump card? Speaking Mandarin 
No language barrier for The Amazing Race winners in China
By Jeanmarie Tan
 
May 16, 2009       
 
IT PAYS to speak Mandarin.

One million dollars to be exact, in the case of US-born-and-bred siblings Tammy and Victor Jih, winners of the 14th season of popular reality series The Amazing Race.

And they have their hard-driving, mother tongue-endorsing parents to thank for it.

Although already considered one of the front runners this season, the Harvard-trained lawyers of Chinese descent received an even bigger boost when two legs of the race were set in China.

It was then that they started taking advantage of their 'imperfect' knowledge of Mandarin to communicate with the locals while the other English-speaking racers floundered with the language barrier.

The brother-and-sister duo also excelled in tasks like taking customers' orders in a Chinese restaurant and writing calligraphy.

They also made several self-deprecating remarks during those episodes, like bringing shame to their parents who may 'cry themselves to death' if they didn't come first in the China legs.

Tammy, 26, told The New Paper over the phone from San Francisco that those comments were 'part serious and part joking'.

She said: 'They'd be proud of us no matter what, but if we failed (those tasks), it would be shameful (because) they invested time and effort in getting us to learn the language.'

Victor, 35, added: 'Now they fight over who's more responsible for our success! But both of them are just happy we came home alive, because they expected us to lose.'

According to him, during their childhood, their mum refused to speak to them in English and forced the family to communicate only in Mandarin at home.

Temper tantrums ensued.

Their parents are originally from Taiwan and lived in the US for 30 years, but have since returned to their home country.

Victor recalled: 'In kindergarten I couldn't even say 'I need to go to the bathroom' in English, so I wet my pants on the first day...

'We fought with our parents growing up (over attending Chinese school), but now we're grateful they never gave up on us.'

Coincidentally, the timing of their victory - which was filmed months ago but aired only on Sunday in the US - couldn't be more perfect as it fell on Mother's Day.

Tammy said: 'We convinced them to make this crazy trip and fly to New York City at the last minute to watch the finale with us.

'They didn't know we'd won, so it was so special to share it with them, especially on Mother's Day.'

As their new windfall would go into paying off Tammy's law school loans, how are they going to repay mum?

Victor said: 'We're working on it, but they've said they'll take the Hawaii trip!'

That's one of four holidays the pair won for nabbing first place on one of the race's legs.

First Asian-American team to win

The Jihs are also the first Asian-American team to pocket The Amazing Race's US$1 million ($1.47m) prize.

Victor said: 'It was a surprise anyway, so it's great winning. Period. But it's also a vindication of the way we were brought up.'

The siblings - who were portrayed as being smart, strong, competitive, friendly and even physically attractive - said they've received e-mails from Asian-Americans and Asians from all over the world who were 'happy and proud' of the way they carried themselves on the show.

Victor revealed that one of the e-mails came from a 'little Japanese kid' who said he had always argued with his mother too. But after watching them on the show, he thought it was a 'good idea' to stay in Japanese school.

Even though Victor had visited China before - most recently to Beijing for last year's Olympics - he saw the country in a new light after The Amazing Race.

He said: 'I felt very American around the other racers because they never treated us differently.

'But then I felt very Asian because the Chinese people around us treated us well too and were rooting for us, so it was then that I completely accepted both parts of my identity.'
 
http://newpaper.asiaone.com/show/story/0,4136,202131,00.html

ZBC Company:
and frist asain to win

apskip:
zacharybusch,

Make Tammy and Victor first Asian-Americans to win. The first Asians to win were Zabrina and JoeJer for Amazing Race Asia 1.

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