Why I think Sex Blogger Alvin Tan did the right thing in leaving Malaysia

Hello again everyone. I want to respond to many people on social media who have been asking for Alvin Tan to "do the right thing" and return to Malaysia to face the music. Personally, I don't agree that Alvin Tan should do that - allow me to express my personal opinion on the issue. Now I have interviewed Alvin a few times for my blog and yes he is a personal friend, but this article is purely based on my personal opinion and has no input from him, okay?

Firstly, a lot of people have dragged Alvin's mother into the equation. I think one should leave her alone as she has nothing to do with what her son has done (note that Alvin spent most of his formative years as a scholar in Singapore, away from her in KL) - but allow me to deal with the people who claim that he is 'betraying' her by running away to America. If he had stayed in Malaysia, he would undoubtedly go to jail (for quite a long time). Let me ask you this question: what good would a son in jail do for old Mrs Tan? So she can have the 'privilege' of visiting her son in jail for the next few years? What kind of mother would want that kind of 'privilege'? No mother in the world would want that.

What mother would want to see her son in jail?

So if we were to put these options to Mrs Tan: auntie, which would you prefer your son for his future?

A) Rot in a Malaysian jail, then come out of jail after having been broken by the long jail sentence, facing a very, very bleak future in Malaysia as an ex-criminal with a bad reputation

B) Start a new life in America, where he can wipe the slate clean and have a chance to start all over again

Clearly, any sane, logical mother would choose option B over A. It is pretty obvious. Why would any mother choose option A over option B? Only a vindictive hater would want to see Alvin pick the worse of the two options presented above because they simply want to see him suffer for what he has done. Personally, I don't approve of what he has done (with regards to the Bak Kut Teh episode) but I am not going to nag at Alvin about it. I'm sure hindsight is 2020 and he would have realized that he had gotten himself into a lot of trouble over that whole Bak Kut Teh incident. But at this point, we're not going to split hairs over what he should have done given that we can't go back and change the past. At this point, it is all about making the best of a bad situation - both for Alvin as well as for his parents. Such is life, stuff your morals and principles: you do what you have to do when you are presented a difficult situation with no easy options. And in this case, the best option was for Alvin to leave - the opportunity presented itself when he was allowed to travel to Singapore for the filming of a documentary and he took it. I say, good for him for having the balls to do so.

Alvin chose to flee, Vivian chose to stay.

I am sure Alvin's parents can appreciate that they have absolutely nothing to gain by letting their son rot in a Malaysian prison for many years. The police may question them to try to find out how much they knew about Alvin's plans but at the end of the day, they didn't do anything wrong and the police cannot continue to harass them forever. Oh and they always have the option of visiting Alvin in America if they so wish to - by that token, they are no different from Malaysian parents with children working overseas and that is fairly common in Malaysia.

I have no idea what lies ahead for Alvin Tan in America once his asylum application comes through and he can get on with establishing a career for himself in America. Maybe he will be successful, maybe he will be ordinary and boring - who knows? But one thing I do know for sure, is that any kind of future for him in Malaysia would be extremely bleak. Some people make a big deal about his mother losing her 20,000 RM (S$7817, £3775) bond when Alvin failed to return from Singapore - that's an extremely short sighted view of the situation. With Alvin rotting in jail for a long jail sentence, the projected loss in earnings for Alvin would be a much bigger figure. At least with Alvin as a free man in America, he can easily earn that 20,000 RM back in a matter of months and repay his mother in a relatively short space of time. Relax, she will get her money back from Alvin in due course. Do the maths people, Mrs Tan clearly has.

I have no doubt Alvin will earn that 20,000 RM back pretty quickly.

What about these haters then - why are they so upset that Alvin didn't end up in jail? I suppose their point of view stems from being in a society where they have given up certain privileges by following the rules and being obedient. Thus they expect someone like Alvin to be punished for breaking the rules and if he doesn't - then it turns their world upside down because it questions this whole concept of right and wrong. I have actually talked about this issue before in a Singaporean context and you can read about it here. Well hopefully, this episode may actually help some of the haters grow up and learn a thing or two about the real world. Funny how life sends messengers like Alvin Tan to teach some of you some hard truths about the world we live in.