Hawaii has another contestant on the long-running CBS reality show “Survivor”: Jonas Otsuji.
And, yes, he’s from the same family that farms on the slopes of Koko Crater, just behind Kaiser High School in Hawaii Kai.
The 37-year-old Otsuji divides his time between his home in Utah, where he is a sushi chef, and the family vegetable farm, which he plans to take over when his father retires.
Otsuji has been a fan of “Survivor” since the first season in 2000. Whenever a season would end, his wife would tell him he could win the show’s $1 million prize.
But it wasn’t until he watched a pair of contestants — including University of Hawaii student Kelly “Purple Kelly” Shinn — quit the show in 2010 that Otsuji decided to apply for the cast, he said.
“I couldn’t believe they would quit,” he said in a phone call last week. “I was really passing judgment on them. And then I did some self-reflection and thought I was being hypocritical. Here I am passing judgment and Ihaven’t even applied. Right then and there I decided to make an audition video.”
Two weeks later Otsuji got a call from the show. He thought it was a prank.
Otsuji is one of 18 castaways on the 24th season of the show. “Survivor: One World” takes place in Samoa. This season, which was shot last summer, divides the group into two tribes — men versus women — and everyone gets to live in the same happy camp while deciding whether to share resources with each other, betray a trust or vote a buddy off the island.
“Survivor: One World” premiered last week and airs at 7 p.m. Wednesdays on KGMB.
To survive on the show — and he can’t say how long he survived — Otsuji drew upon his time growing up on the family farm and his familiarity of the ocean. The Kaiser grad (class of 1993) was an avid surfer and spearfisherman, but the farm came first, he said.
But even that didn’t give him the confidence he needed to take on a group of conniving castaways. Instead, he found inspiration from the way he brought his own family back from financial ruin.
A few years ago he was deep into the Las Vegas real estate boom, and over a three-year period accumulated $2 million in real estate and close to $250,000 in cash.
“We went out and kept buying and buying, and when the market crashed we got overextended and lost everything,” Otsuji said.
By 2008 he had filed for bankruptcy.
To survive — and with this, he can say how long — Otsuji talked his way into becoming a sushi chef apprentice for $9.50 an hour. On weekends he and his wife would prowl garage sales for items they could buy and resell on craigslist or eBay. Sometimes they would go through their own belongings to see what they could sell.
“It was a really dark time,” Otsuji said. “Just to put food on the table, we would do all these crazy things.”
But he persevered and became an accomplished sushi chef who now runs his own catering business and teaches at several Utah cooking schools. Competing on “Survivor” was one of the hardest things Otsuji has ever done, he said. He feels like a different person now.
“I don’t know what a pie-in-the-sky idea is anymore,” he said. “It lifted the possibilities for my brain. Anything is possible now.”
AND that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.