After all she has read about him, after all she has heard and seen about her son who is now in jail waiting to be prosecuted for posting that pork soup jibe aimed at Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, it takes a mother to say this, “Alvin has always been a good boy”.
Meet Mrs Tan, the mother of the sex blogger, who, with his girlfriend Vivian sought and found notoriety first for their raunchy sex postings, then, more recently, for taunting Muslims in their own homeland.
Breaking her media silence for the first time by talking to The Malaysian Insider, Mrs Tan expresses confusion over why her child is in such trouble.
“Everyone now is judging him. He is not a politician or a member of any political party. He is a simple boy. Yes, what he did was really bad, but he did apologise and admitted what he did was silly.”
She says: “I'm extremely worried, fearful and anxious for both of them in prison. I do not know if they're safe there or if they were ill-treated.
“I am worried that both of them are incapable of dealing with emotional stress and I am afraid they will commit suicide while being under immense emotional and mental stress.”
Speaking in a restaurant at Desa Park City, Mrs Tan says of the second of her three children, “Alvin has always been a good boy. He has never given me any problems. He is a really simple person.”
Alvin and his girlfriend Vivian like to call themselves Alvivi, a brandname they have been building with the help of the news media, which follow their antics closely.
They first achieved infamy for openly posting sex videos and pictures on their blog, for which Alvin lost his law scholarship to the National University of Singapore, a move his fans still decry as too much punishment for what they say was freedom of expression.
The young couple’s own reactions to that wavered from initial half-hearted apologies to obvious delight with the international media attention and increasingly defiant statements, eventually drawing stronger attention from the Malaysian authorities.
“As a mother, when I found out about sex videos, I was shocked. I warned him not to do such things as Malaysia was a more conservative country, not like the Western countries,” says Mrs Tan.
But it was their Facebook post of a picture showing them eating bak kut teh, a pork herbal dish, with the greeting "Selamat Berbuka Puasa" (Happy Breaking Fast) with a halal logo as well, that triggered police action.
Even the usually measured Chief Minister of Penang Lim Guan Eng called for serious action last week, saying: “They deserve to be punished. There is no doubt about it. It is completely un-Malaysian. They are a complete disgrace."
Alvin and Vivian were charged on Thursday with three counts under the Sedition Act, the Film Censorship Act, and the Penal Code.
Since then, Mrs Tan has been to two prisons to visit her son and his girlfriend separately. When the phone rings, she looks at it nervously for news from their lawyers. The couple are being held without bail, a move that has triggered some controversy in itself.
“I did not even have time to speak to him properly. He was already being questioned and later whisked away by the police. The last week was just horrible,” says the mother.
She visited Alvin in Sungai Buloh Prison on Friday and it broke her heart to see him in the remand prison uniform.
“No mother wants to see her own son in jail. I am under so much emotional stress,” she says.
“All he said was he was given food,” she adds, sighing.
“As for Vivian, I am not very close to her, but I felt for her when all these things happened as she was alone. So I stood in to give her support.
“I also tried visiting her in Kajang Prison but could not see her, as only her mother or relative was allowed visitation rights. I am worried for her as just last month, her right hand was slashed during a robbery incident along Jalan Ipoh and she had to undergo surgery.
“So, she is now without medication and her follow up visit is this week. The police have yet to solve her robbery case yet, and already she is prosecuted.”
Mrs Tan says her family has been harassed by unknown people, leaving them traumatised and fearing for their lives.
“Apart from emotional, mental and physical stress, we are also facing immense financial burdens as we are just like any other average families. We are not rich at all and this case is adding to our unending financial burdens.”
She speaks proudly of her son’s academic achievements. “At age 15, he won an Asean scholarship to study in a secondary school in Singapore, before moving to Raffles Junior College and to National University of Singapore to study law.
“But being a highly intelligent person, Alvin has his own eccentricities. He is very different from those in his age group. When I first heard the news, I was extremely disappointed with him.
“No one can relate to this unless their children have been through something similar to Alvin's case. It was extremely stressful and painful. Honestly, I do not understand Alvin’s world.”
Her final word on the issue: “If you look at the both of them, they are just two young people. They simply did stupid things."
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