When Alvin and Vivian shared a sex tape they shot together out to the internet, all hell broke loose for the duo. They were covered widely by the media especially when they released the controversial ‘bak kut teh’ image. The next thing you know, almost the whole country knew about their story, or did they?
The name ‘Alvin Tan’ has been associated negatively but he recently published a post on his personal Facebook to express his side of the story. Whether anyone believes it or not, he personally dgaf.
He writes,
“I feel compelled to publicly explain why I left Vivian behind to face prosecution and a 6-month jail term, because I’m so sick and tired of being branded as an asshole by the media and public who don’t know the context and circumstances of the entire ordeal.
First, if you want to be a social justice warrior, direct your anger at the right source: the Sedition Act itself and our non-independent courts. Calling me a “coward” is, quite ironically, cowardly in itself — you have no guts to address the elephant in the room, which is that “hate speech” laws are always a tool for governmental control over the population (and, if you swallow whatever rationalizations they offer to retain those laws, like racial riots, you’re quite the idiot). Go read up on why and how generations of Americans have fought and died just to protect the First Amendment for over 200 years; get educated instead of sounding off like a government mouthpiece/propaganda shill.
But no, you won’t do that. Instead, you prefer to go off tangent and condemn he who isn’t even there to defend himself, me. That’s not a lot of bravery on display right there. After all, it’s not me who’s prosecuting her and sentencing her to a jail term under an unjust law that’s applied even more unjustly. You want to have an emotional outburst and to feel morally superior? Speak up against unjust prosecution and imprisonment: take a jab at the government. Don’t get angry at me. I didn’t put UMNO in power.
That said, let’s get back to the crux of the issue: was I really being an asshole deliberately by abandoning Vivian, leaving her to face prosecution alone? To answer that question, we need to go back to November 2012. Throughout the entire 2012, Vivian and I have been meeting on a monthly basis, travelling on road trips and hanging out casually, after we met online. She was then living in Johor Bahru, while I lived in Kuala Lumpur. We had a blast; two of the funnest people coming together building some indestructible memories was quite something to experience first-hand. We got to filming and photographing ourselves having sex and posting it on the internet, and the rest was history: the media made a big deal out of it, NUS decided to expel me to protect their fragile reputation, and, the least known of all, Vivian’s family decided to disown her and throw her out on the streets with no warning whatsoever.
Yes, that happened one fine Monday morning circa middle of November 2012. That was about a month after the media covered our story, and things were starting to die down. I received a call around 1 p.m. from Vivian, saying that things with her family have broken down irreparably, and her mom, at the urging of her malicious nosey “fire stone” uncle and her brother, decided to kick her out of the house. Note, Vivian at that time was a fresh graduate who did not have a job. Obviously there was major tension between her and her family, and they gave her an ultimatum: choose Alvin or us. If you choose Alvin, you have to get out of the house right now. And they meant it.
Vivian being Vivian chose Alvin. And that was before she decided to consult me. She just took a gigantic leap of faith that I would be there to catch her fall. So they force-packed all her clothes and personal effects into boxes, gave her a final scolding, and dumped her at the Johor Bahru Larkin Bus Station, and drove off. They did NOT give her any money whatsoever. They were absolutely cold and merciless, because obviously face was more important than, you know, being decent compassionate forgiving human beings. So there she was, stranded in a ghetto-ass bus station surrounded by tons of unsavory characters, in home clothes and boxes of her stuff at 1 p.m. on a Monday afternoon.
THAT was when she called me. She told me the entire story, and she begged for me to come pick her up, because she didn’t know what to do. We were both only 23 years old then, and I could barely take care of myself. So to wake up one day receiving a call like that, I know that, whatever my next move was, it was going to have a big impact on my life moving forward. And I was right.
I remember telling her to stay calm, try to remain in public view, because a young lone Chinese girl with tons of personal belongings was a prime target for theft, rape, kidnapping, and what not, while I figured out what to do. That was her basically saying, “I’m now fucked. Please help me.” Against my better judgment, I called my parents, separately, to get their advice. I first called my dad and explained the whole situation. He immediately knew it was bad news.
My dad said, “Okay, here’s what you need to do. Withdraw RM2,000 from your bank account, drive down there, make sure she’s okay, but NEVER bring her back to Kuala Lumpur. Drop her the cash and drive back ALONE. Put her up in a hotel for the night and let her take care of herself. If you go against my word, trust me, she’ll stick to you like a leech, and you’ll never be free for a long time.” (words of wisdom, really)
Then I called my mom.
My mom said, “Okay, whatever you do, don’t live with her. She needs to stand on her own two feet, no matter how difficult the situation is, and she can’t be depending on you. You don’t owe her anything. So bring her back, transport all her stuff, and get her a cheap hotel in Kuala Lumpur. In that time, look for a room that’s safe for her, give her some money, help her to find a job, and check on her from time to time. Whatever you do, don’t live with her. Your life will only get worse.”
So that was that. I had to make a quick decision, because, once it was sunset, it was going to be way more dangerous for her to be alone there, in shorts and sleeveless top, no less. And it took 5 hours to drive there. To be honest, cohabitation was NEVER part of the plan, because we weren’t exclusive (or were we ever — more on this later), so granting her that special privilege just because she was experiencing some hardship wasn’t a smart move. I knew that. On the other hand, this was back in November 2012, where the public and media were betting big money that I was going to dump her ass after the sex blog saga. They were calling me names already, and I felt the especial urge to step up to the challenge and prove them wrong. Long story short, I went against the advice of both my parents, which I felt were too cold, calculative, and heartless. I decided to live with her and take care of her in her time of greatest need.
When I arrived at the bus station, she looked so lost and forlorn, obviously she had been crying a lot from earlier in the day, and she was MASSIVELY relieved and hugged me tightly when my car pulled up to the kerb. I was dumbfounded by how many boxes of belongings she had: eleven, and THEY WEREN’T SMALL. I tried my best to load all of them into my tiny Hyundai Atos, and we drove back to Kuala Lumpur.
We lived in my rented room in Chow Kit for a while, but obviously we were going to need a better living arrangement. So we went out to hunt for apartments, but, because of how recognizable we were, nobody wanted to rent out to us for fear of trouble. A kind woman by the name of Stella, who were thankfully pro-Alvivi, decided to rent us her studio apartment. So we moved in together, we shopped for furniture together, we built our little home together. She did most of the household chores while I took care of the bigger stuff, like getting wi-fi for our apartment, fixing up the furniture, and basically ensuring a safe, livable, and comfortable space for the both of us.
Obviously I paid for everything at that time (rent, bills, petrol, food, entertainment, etc.), and that’s fine. I undertook the responsibility of taking care of her, and that’s part of the deal I knowingly walked into. It was fine for a while. There were good times, and it was quite a convenience to wake up at 1 p.m. every day and have lunch served. Most noons, I just played with my Playstation, and, after a few hours, dinner again was served. At night, we had sex or went out to meet couples to swing with. It was quite the life, even if a little monotonous. I never needed to work, because by then my SaaS startup was generating RM4,000+ a month of passive income. My stock portfolio was doing well, and, if I needed to liquidate any of my shares, I could do that instantly and get cash the next day. I even created a new stream of income for us (our YouTube channel), the earnings from which we split right down the middle. Sometimes, I just outrightly gave Vivian cash, e.g. during Chinese New Year when she had no one’s house to go back to. We also hosted a couple of sex parties and made profits from that; again, we split the profits right down the middle. Because of that, we never needed to work from December 2012 to July 2013.
We were of course frugal, and part of the deal, if she wanted to live with me, was to 1) obey my house rules, which is simple: no bringing any guys back to MY apartment, 2) give me my personal time when I need it, and it was to be STRICTLY obeyed, and 3) be honest and open with me at all times. Unfortunately, within the span of less than a year, all of those rules were violated multiple times. She mistook my willingness to live with her as a sign that we’re now “exclusive,” without taking into account the exceptional circumstances of how we got to live together in the first place.
So she started not only to tell the media and her friends that I was her boyfriend (no such agreement occurred) but also to expect me to keep up the facade for her. I HATED THAT SHIT, because it was simply not true. I went along anyway, because I didn’t want to embarrass her publicly by contradicting her. That sort of shit is really humiliating for a girl, so I decided to keep silent on that even though it really bothered me.
But because I played along with her in public and pretended to be her boyfriend, we were now “official” and supposedly exclusive. She now even dictated extra terms in our living arrangement. Barring the swinging sessions that we had, I was to devote my penis to her solely and she was to devote her vagina to me solely. Usually, I’d reject outright any absurd proposal like that — because I was the one bringing in the dough, who the hell are you to make demands? But I figured that I wouldn’t be able to bring girls back anyway with her there (I did once in January 2013, it was disastrous and dramatic beyond belief, and I was trapped, because I lived with her… I think that was my first moment of regret cohabiting with her). So what difference does it make? So I guess, let’s just be “exclusive” and spice things up along the way with swinging. That was fine with me so long as it wasn’t completely closed, and that everything was honest and open.
Well, it wasn’t. I’m highly convinced that she brought guys back without my knowledge, and she also had many sexual encounters outside of swinging. That wouldn’t be a big deal to me, really, but she decided to LIE ABOUT IT and cover all of it up. And that was after I confronted her about the lies she told me about being “on the pill,” so I just nutted in her all the time. I noticed like 3-4 months into it that I NEVER SAW HER TAKING THE PILL. And one day, during a random swinging session, she told the girl, “Oh, we’ve been trying for a baby for a while now, but we got no luck I guess.”
HEY, EXCUSE ME, WHAT THE FUCK!?
Since when did we want a baby!? Are you fucking insane, you crazy bitch? When and how did you come to this decision? Alone or alone? I was fuming and incensed inside by then. This was NOT part of the deal. You can’t just lie to my face like that and pretended that everything is okay. Then more and more of her lies surfaced, and honestly I felt completely disrespected. I won’t be cucked like that, paying for a woman’s entire expenses and still having her lie to me and treat me like a fool. The funny thing was I indeed kept to my end of the bargain and, excluding swinging sessions, I really did keep my dick to myself.
I felt like a fucking dumb ass. Because obviously, ideally, girls want the guys they “love” to be exclusive to them, but they themselves can go out and ride the Cock Carousel. That’s the ideal case. But that’s patently unfair and no guy with any semblance of a spine would agree to that. If she brought that up, I wouldn’t even bother driving down to Johor Bahru to prove that I was a man. So she decided to trick me into this arrangement and see how long she could get away with it.
By June/July 2013, I already decided to kick her out, and trust me, this was when shit got REALLY dramatic. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even use my computer in peace. There was screaming and hitting and scratching all the time, and evacuating a lying, cheating, manipulative whore was a complete tall order. I can’t believe how this once-sweet girl could transform into a monster and ruin my life just because I decided to cut ties. There was property destruction, blood spilt, and tons of screaming that risked throwing BOTH OF US out on the streets if the building manager decided that we were too crazy to handle.
I felt it was utterly unfair to me that she was the cause of the drama yet I have to suffer through all of it, even though I didn’t do anything wrong and still paid for the fucking rent month after month. Can you believe me? I couldn’t enjoy my own space. With Vivian, there wasn’t an “argument” schedule. She routinely picked a fight and annoyed me 24/7. Some nights I couldn’t even sleep and decided to sleep in the kitchen. Again, I was the patriarch, so what the fuck? She should be the one sleeping in the kitchen for not containing herself. This is one of the pitfalls of cohabitation that I painfully learnt. If any of you think that I’m still going to cave into marriage, you’re sorely, sorely mistaken.
I thought of just leaving the apartment myself, letting her crumble under the burden of unpaid rent and bills. But that was MY apartment. Why the fuck should I leave? I loved that apartment. It had a sky pool, rent was only RM600, and I furnished everything with my own money. It was my first home that I could be proud of. SHE SHOULD LEAVE. But try removing someone who lives WITH you and can actually physically bother you. I have to thank her for teaching me this lesson early in life, thankfully without marriage to further cloud the situation. Not only did she not once express her gratitude for practically saving her life in November 2012, she continued to not show any appreciation for supporting her completely from December 2012-July 2013 and lied, cheated, and made my life a LIVING HELL… while I have to pay for that privilege.
To those who think I don’t understand the struggle of the trapped married man, you’re fucking wrong.
Her lies will never end, because she was the type of coward who thought that she’d lose me if she was honest. Frankly, if she was honest from the start, that she wanted an “open” open relationship, I would have happily accepted it. We would have a much more cordial relationship, and I bet it would bring us closer together, by establishing a culture of total trust and openness. Ah, but that wouldn’t be her. She would rather pretend to be this monogamous angel who manipulated me into being loyal, yet she herself could take advantage of the buffet of dicks out there. I was foolish, because I actually believed her. And my loyalty was wasted.
You know how you need to lie more to cover up your initial lies? Lying is always a losing game. Because you never know, when your partner asks you a question, does he know the truth? Or does he not know the truth? If he knows the truth and is merely testing you, you’re dead meat if you lie straight to his face. It’s like a double strike. If he doesn’t know the truth, you’re stupid for volunteering the truth, and you risk losing him over something you could have kept a secret anyway. My experience with liars is that liars will always lie. They can’t help it. Vivian herself even told me personally, “I cheated, because I was so insecure about you cheating on me, so I cheated on you first.”
WHAT KIND OF FUCKING SLUT LOGIC IS THAT!?
So now we’re up to July 2013. I felt that I was treated VERY UNJUSTLY by public opinion. Because I actually stepped up, rescued her, took care of her when even her own family refused to, and I never got one ounce of credit for that, especially when the public betted heavily that I would leave her ass. I stepped up, I became “a man” and put my money where my mouth is, but none of that was ever reported by the media. Nobody gave a shit. Why? Because it detracted from the mainstream narrative that I was an asshole. How can they sell their agenda if they offer unbiased, objective coverage of the facts, right?
Contrast to now (2014-2016) when I actually decided not to be the fool to bail her out all the time… Now all of a sudden, I’m the asshole. I saved her once, I was under no obligation to do so, but no one will give me credit for that, right?
But fuck public opinion. The most important thing was Vivian herself was unrepentant, a total ungrateful brat, and completely disrespected me as her provider. She violated rules set by me and even rules set by herself, and she had the gall to further make my life miserable. I don’t think I slept well at all the entire month of June 2013. All the time I was losing money supporting her unappreciative ass, hosting her continual harrassment of me and trespassing of my personal space, the one very sacred thing you shouldn’t even touch, even if we were on the worst of terms. But she didn’t care.
So to say that I hated her and wanted her to die is a SEVERE UNDERSTATEMENT. Short of killing her myself, I wouldn’t even care if she got stabbed. Ahh, but we came close, because Vivian got robbed and slashed by a parang in the middle of all this drama.
Of course, soft-hearted me called an ambulance, brought home-cooked food to her every single day of hospitalization, PAID FOR HER ENTIRE SURGERY, and helped her to shower, kept her company, etc. Again, any credit from the public? No. Alvin is the asshole who left her. Vivian then took this as a sign of reconciliation. No, you fucking whore. I was just being nice. You can’t equate shit that don’t add up. You’re still a lying whore who ruined my life, and I’ll never forget that.
So whatever, fast forward to July 2013, we went to jail, and eventually by November 2013, I got her set up with renting her own room. She knew that things were irreparable between us by then, and everything I did was done out of a sense of obligation. She STILL maintained the impression that she wanted to be loyal to me, but, whatever, I used her to swing at least a dozen times between July-December 2013. And then I caught her lying again by actually walking in on her and another guy having sex. That was in December 2013.
Oh well, at least she wasn’t living with me anymore, so I decided to cut her off. Like cold. I didn’t go out with her anymore, I didn’t talk to her anymore, and then I started meeting other girls (yay). I fucked quite a few girls early 2014 using Tinder and Paktor alone. It was amazing. When the time came for me to skip bail and escape prosecution, do you think at that point I would want to spend EVEN MORE MONEY on her to be COMPLETELY DISRESPECTED AND UNAPPRECIATED EVER AGAIN?
No, fuck no, that wasn’t on my mind at all. In fact, with what a dramatic whore Vivian was, I couldn’t even share my plan with her. I knew she’d do everything to sabotage my plans to leave. So I left quietly. Don’t even underestimate the costs of migration under time pressure. Between immigration lawyer fees, living expenses, flight tickets, etc., I had to pony up more than $10,000 US DOLLARS of my own money in four days. That’s per person. Even if she had been the BEST person to me, a total saint, it was highly doubtful that I could afford it for two people. Try coming up with RM70-80,000 cash in four days. Go and try.
Then see whether you’re a hero or a coward. And then only pass judgment.
But that’s beside the point. The point is that I wasn’t even sure if I could pull it off myself. My legal knowledge had hitherto been theoretical and never been put to the test. Nobody in the history of Malaysia had ever pulled it off before. I was stepping into the UNKNOWN, with a high chance of failure. And imagine being deported back to Malaysia AFTER skipping bail. Not only would I lose my bail money, I’d be incarcerated for many years in Sungai Buloh Prison to serve as an example to the trst. I knew I’d be captured and imprisoned at the US-Mexico border by the US government. And I was, but I managed to put in an application for political asylum while I was in deportation proceedings.
I served almost four months in a US immigration prison. Did you fuckers even know that? No. I was the coward who left Vivian alone to face prosecution. Now compare that to her six-month sentence that was stayed anyway; she is now, as we speak, still out on bail. Guess who bailed her? Yes, my magnanimous mother. Her own mother didn’t even give a shit.
Even before I left, I tried my best to get us out of prosecution. We went to Petaling Street together to try to get a fake passport, hopefully to be able to at least slip over the Malaysia-Thailand border and then fly to some country to seek asylum. We didn’t have our passports then. I personally drove to Golok to see how we could slip across the border.
I even urged my lawyer to write to the court to request for our passports temporarily. I knew my fucking lawyer wasn’t on my side, because he said he’d have to charge RM10,000 for that. Fuck you. Of course he wanted me to stay behind and face prosecution — more money for him. What a heartless bastard. He finally agreed to do that for RM500. So I gathered the cash, and by some miracle another judge was assigned our case, and he was nice enough to let us go to Singapore for 3 weeks to film a documentary.
Upon getting the passports, I urged Vivian strongly to consider going to Thailand and build a temporary life there. She didn’t pay any part of the RM500, yet she had the privilege of holding her passport in hand. But she couldn’t do it — too much to leave behind, she said, which was puzzling, because WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE HERE ANYWAY? The truth was that she wasn’t brave enough, strong enough, resourceful enough, or smart enough to escape. She knew that. You could give her her passport now, and she still wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Neither would most Malaysians who’re criticizing me.
Remember, at this point, I still hated her guts. You can’t blame me for not wanting to help her completely to escape. Even if I wanted to, I doubt she wanted to leave. She still had faith of a good outcome should she stay back and face trial. Well, your choice, I’m leaving. Sayonara.
So I came to the US alone, facing terrible hardships in my earliest days after my unexpected release from US immigration detention. I thought I was toast, because I had been in there for four months. Imagine being deported back to Malaysia after all that waiting; I’d probably get another ten years in Malaysia. When I was free, I had $1,000 odd and had to build a life off that. I came very, very close to homelessness, and at times I even broke down and questioned myself if I did the right thing. But each time, I’d wipe my tear away, tell myself to stay strong, to accept the consequences of my decisions, and to soldier on bravely. Hell, my eyes are fucking wet now just typing this, because I could still remember very distinctly the coldness of the winter days, which I had never experienced before in my life, eating instant noodles for months, having to find for sweaters/jackets in the trash to wash and use, begging certain places to let me be a cleaner and STILL GET REJECTED, etc. It was very, very hard, but I stayed very strong and resolute that I wanted to make something of myself. There was no turning back for me.
Guess what the public did during that extremely-trying period of my life? They called me a coward, they called me an asshole, just like they are now. The truth is that it takes enormous courage to save yourself and choose not to be subject to a tyrannical society and punished just to exact revenge for some hypersensitive people. It takes even more courage to not only arrive in a new city — hell, new country and new continenet even — alone without possessions or papers but also be expected to build a great life. In that time, my parents called me ONCE. In fact, we talked once in 2014. Twice in 2015. Once so far in 2016. And yes, they never gave me a single cent all the time I was in the US. This I can guarantee you is the truth. Still not a single cent. I was a natural survivor, and they know it.
So when I became more established in the US, in May 2015, I offered Vivian a chance to escape. I got the contact number of some “snake head” who could smuggle her across to Thailand and bring her to the US. Unfortunately, it would cost $10,000 US Dollars. I said, okay, just find out more and let’s consider this option. Remember, I still hated her guts till now for fucking my life up and manipulating my feelings, but I’m not a heartless mother fucker. I told her that I’ll find a way to come up with the money.
Guess what she said?
“Oh, I just want this prosecution to be over and done with so I can resume my life. I don’t see the point of running away when I can just go through and finish this.”
I swear to God. I don’t even like talking about this, because I don’t feel the need to account to the public. But when people who don’t know the whole truth cast aspersions on my motive or character, I feel compelled to put more facts out into the public sphere, so you can make your own judgment. Chances are you’ll still call me a coward and asshole, but that’s fine; it’s me over here living and working in the US, while you’re just bitter jaded fools toiling endlessly and miserably in Third World despair for the rest of your unmeaningful, uneventful life.
So that was that. And then she got sentenced to six months’ jail. What really pisses me off is the double standards of society. If Vivian had left for the US, leaving me behind to face prosecution, would anyone call her a “coward” and an “asshole” for abandoning me? I highly doubt it. I think people would applaud her and tell her, “Good job for leaving that asshole! Now start a new life and show him that you can live without him. Gambateh!”
Well I’m sick of explaining myself. You guys think whatever you want.”
