On January 3, 2008, Chan was announced to be among the favorites in Survivor: Micronesia, which is the sixteenth season of Survivor and began airing on February 7, 2008. On the first episode of the show, he formed a loose alliance with fellow favorites Jonathan Penner, Ami Cusack, and Eliza Orlins. Chan joined the rest of his tribe in voting Jon Dalton off the island during that episode.
As aired in episode three, the Favorites lost the immunity challenge and Chan was targeted by Survivor: Panama favorite Cirie Fields, the swing vote for the two alliances (the other consisting of Amanda Kimmel, Ozzy Lusth, Parvati Shallow and James Clement). Fields targeted him because of his reputation as an intelligent player, and she was scared of what would happen if he found the Hidden Immunity Idol again. Despite Penner's attempts to persuade Fields to join their alliance, Chan was eliminated and became the third person voted off the island by a vote of 6-2-1, despite an effort to target Parvati Shallow.
However, additional footage released on the official Survivor website revealed another side to these events. Fields, who was one of the first people to visit Exile Island in this season, had shared all the clues to the location of the hidden immunity idol that she had gathered with Chan, with the understanding that the two of them would share the idol in a similar manner to Chan and Earl. After this information exchange, Chan suggested to the tribe that if they won the next reward challenge, instead of following the tribe's earlier procedure of drawing lots to determine which of their own number went to Exile Island, Penner would be sent. Upon hearing this, Fields drew the conclusion that Chan had given Penner the clues she had just shared, and that the two men were in an alliance that excluded her. That conclusion was another factor in Fields' decision to eliminate Chan. Post-elimination interviews of Jonathan Penner have told a similar story.
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