Saturday, February 11, 2012

Up close and personal with Roger Tan

The Star
by Wong Wei-Shen 

Lawyer and SPAN commissioner gets...

ROGER Tan has come a long way since his small town boy days in Yong Peng, Johor. From living in poverty as a young lad to becoming a successful lawyer in Malaysia, it is not hard to see that Tan values hard work, discipline and determination. These values are what have made him the man he is today.

Despite having achieved a lot in his life so far, it is evident that Tan harbours a lot of pain and anguish. On May 23, 2000, his father, Tan Sue Yong, the person who inspired Tan to become the man he is today, went missing after a walk about in Yong Peng town. His anguish lingers as 11 years later, his father has still not been found.

Tan is emotional when speaking to StarBizWeek about his father. “11 years have passed. Actually I've done all I can but we still can't locate him. I've gone on national television and used the press in every form. This is one area I feel that I've failed him.” Tan's wish is to get closure on his father's disappearance. “Even if we can't find him alive, the least that we want is to find his body and give him a decent burial,” he said.

Personal mentor

It is obvious from the way that Tan speaks of his father, that he looks up to his father, just as every little boy does to his own dad: with a sense of admiration and awe. His father comes from the rich Zheng family in Fuzhou, China. Due to the onset of communism, Sue Yong and his wife Swee Mei left China and came to Malaysia.