Anthony B. Chan
Victoria 48° 25' 41.95" N, 123° 21' 53.83" W Film Documentary Media Arts Person Prominent
Published books
| Title | Extended title | Year of Publication |
|---|---|---|
| Linking African American Ghettos and Chinatowns in 19th Century America | Linking African American Ghettos and Chinatowns in 19th Century America-Implications for Criminological Theory | 2010 |
Films
| Title | Description | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese Cafes in Rural Saskatchewan | A film profile of four Chinese cafe owners and their families living and flourishing in Outlook, Humboldt, and Eston, Saskatchewan. It looks at the role of women and sexism, historical and contemporary racism, business acumen, civic spirit and neighborhood relations. Includes a segment on Wayne Mah, the prairie’s only Chinese Canadian mayor in 1985. Rare still photos of early Chinese in Canada. http://gingerpost.com/ (3) | 1985 |
| The Panama | Chronicling the Chan family of Victoria, B.C. One of the oldest Chinese families in Victoria, they owned and operated several restaurants, ending with the Panama Cafe on Government Street from around 1930 until 1967. Chan Dun, at the age of seventeen, landed in Victoria in the 1893, and his family of eight sons and four daughters lived & worked at the Panama Cafe, a western-style eatery catering to the working class of the city. It survived the depression and the war years (even when several sons left for military service). But in the 1960s when fast-food competition in the city became too great, they closed their doors. The film includes many rare black and white photos of early Victoria. | 1996 |
Why is a photo of movie icon, Anna May Wong attached to Anthony B. Chan? The answer is simple. Chan wrote the first major biography of Anna May Wong from a truly Asian American/Canadian sensibility.
http://annamaywong1905.blogspot.com/
Perpetually Cool: The Many lives of Anna May Wong (1905-1961) Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2003 by Anthony B. Chan
Race, gender, ethnicity, and power are the major themes of Anthony B. Chan's fifth book. Entitled Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905- 1961), it is the first full length biography ever written about the life and times of Anna May Wong, America's most famous film actress of Chinese heritage. Published by Rowman and Littlefield's Scarecrow Press in 2003, the book is unique not only because it is told from the perspective of an Asian American, but also from the view of an experienced scholar, writer, and filmmaker.
Under the editorship of noted film historian, Anthony Slide in his Filmmaker Series, Perpetually Cool tells the multifaceted story of the first Chinese American film star as she grew up in Los Angeles during the time of social and political ferment in which the Chinese revolution touched California. it also tells of Wong's first Hollywood films that would lead to international fame in Berlin, London, and Paris and a multi-picture contract with Paramount studios. Her most famous stage play was in London where her co-star in 1929 was a little known actor named Laurence Olivier.
Since cinema is the purest form of mass communication in its visual and emotional impact, Perpetually Cool resonates with a global audience. Informed by the works of Said, Hall, Wellman, Omi, and Gramsci, the book examines the scope and nature of race and power as they impacted on Wong's personal growth as a Chinese American and cinematic career as an Asian American. There are also extensive textual analyses of Wong's signature films, especially the Toll of the Sea (1922), which was Hollywood's first Technicolor film, the Thief of Bagdad (1924), and her most famous role as Hui Fei in Shanghai Express (1932) opposite Marlene Dietrich.
The biography is a story of roots and identity as Wong ventured to China to discover that part of herself, which was missing during her time in the United States. She was to lose her restlessness and was able to transcend her ethnicity, race, and citizenship. She now understood her place in the universe and began to think and live as a Daoist. This is also the story of the patriotism of Anna May Wong who worked tirelessly against fascism during World War II. Perpetually Cool tells the story of a remarkable Asian American woman whose legendary humor was always filled with pithy philosophical advice. Wong was once overheard to have said, "Life is too serious to take seriously."
Chapter 9 excerpt Chapter 14 excerpt
Reviews
1/29/2005 - (Time) Richard Corliss, Anna May Wong Did it Right http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,1022536,00.html
1/13/2005 - (New York Times Review of Books) Robert Gottlieb http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jan/13/orientally-yours/
1/26/2004 - Tony Chan at UCLA Anna May Wong retrospective. http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=6638
1/25/2004 - UCLA Film and Television Archive And Hugh M. Hefner present "Rediscovering Anna May Wong" Pictures of Anna May Wong
National Portrait Gallery http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2004/anna-may-wong.php
Who is Tony Chan? No one knows since Chan has been missing from Canada between 1985 and 2007 when he wandered the earth seeking enlightenment. Not finding that, he returned to Toronto.
Formal profile:
An accomplished scholar, teacher, academic leader, filmmaker, journalist, and writer, Anthony B. Chan is Professor and Associate Dean of Communication at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario.
Born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, Professor Chan returned to Canada after serving as the Chair of the B.A. and M.A. degree programs in Canadian Studies and Director of the Canadian Studies Center in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and as an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Before moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1990, Tony Chan was an Associate Professor of Mass Communication at California State University, Hayward.
His family has been in Canada since 1887 when his paternal grandfather immigrated to Victoria.
Complementing his administrative duties at the University of Washington, Tony was the Head of Broadcast Journalism in the School of Communications at UW, and the Assistant Coordinator of the CIDA-funded China Project Office at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Dr. Chan’s scholarly film work includes Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong, 1905-1961 (2003, 2007), which chronicled the amazing life and hard times of the legendary Chinese American actor, Anna May Wong http://annamaywong1905.blogspot.com. He has agreed to a film option with Silver Dream Production in Pasadena for a biopic of Anna May Wong, produced by Shanghai film producer, Luo Yan.
His first historical biography analyzed the magical life and relentless business pursuits of Li Ka-shing, the most famous Hong Kong deal maker who sold Star TV to Rupert Murdoch. Li is also well known for his purchase of Husky Energy and the Expo ’86 lands as well as a stake in Facebook. Li Ka-shing: Hong Kong Elusive Billionaire was published by Oxford University (1996). In March 2007, Alpha Books, Hanoi, People’s Republic of Vietnam translated this biography into Vietnamese.
Professor Chan’s other scholarly works include Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 1920-1928 (1982) http://chinesegunrunning.blogspot.com and Gold Mountain: The Chinese in the New World (1983). The latter examined Chinese immigration and settlement in Canada from 1850 to 1979. In 1997, he co-edited People to People: An Introduction to Communications. Tony Chan is currently writing a book length manuscript on immigrant nationalism in Chinese Canada where he is especially examining the impact of such social network systems as Facebook on family bonds and the pervasiveness of cyber crime on this ethnic nation in Canada.
His articles can be found in Asian Affairs, Cinemaya, Gazette, Journal of European Economic History, Journal of Ethnic Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Adult Education, Asian Profile, and Army Journal and Defence Quarterly. He has written for Snoecks (Ghent Belgium) and the Globe and Mail. Tony Chan was the founding editor of New Scholars-New Visions in Canadian Studies, Seattle and co-founded The Asianadian: An Asian Canadian Magazine, Toronto.
In addition to his traditional undergraduate and graduate teaching in digital media and journalism, documentary filmmaking, cinema studies, Asian Canadian media, and intercultural, international, and mass communication, Professor Chan’s teaching expertise includes mentoring many doctoral students online. Since 1992, he has been an adjunct supervisor of Ph.D. and Ed.D. students in Education and Ph.D. students in Applied Management and Decision Sciences at Walden University. He has also mentored Ph.D. students in Business at Capella University.
As a filmmaker, Tony Chan’s independent films include a four part series on Asian Americans and Vietnam: Lily Goes Home (2007), The Insanity of it All (2002), Sweet Heat (1998), and American Nurse (1992). http://asianamericansvietnam.blogspot.com The latter was shown at film festivals in Hiroshima, New York, Olympia and aired on PBS, KCTS-TV in Seattle. This film showcase was recently reviewed in Asian Affairs: An American Review and Amerasia. http://memoirsofajooksing.blogspot.com Chan has also produced films focusing on work, culture, and survival in North America. They were The Panama (1996), Another Day in America (1989) profiling Japanese American women artists and jazz musicians and the original Chinese Cafes in Rural Saskatchewan (1985).
Before entering academic life, Chan was a Senior Producer and a television journalist at Television Broadcasts Ltd., Hong Kong where he managed a television production unit and anchored Focus, a 30 minutes English language public affairs show on the Pearl channel. He produced more than 30 documentaries and anchored about 100. He also worked as a supper hour television reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Calgary. At CBC Regina, he hosted and narrated several episodes of The Canadians. http://faculty.washington.edu/chanant/films.html Dr. Chan’s degrees include a Ph.D. in modern Chinese history from York University, Diploma in Chinese from the Beijing Language Institute, M.A.s from Bowling Green State University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Victoria. Some say that Tony is noted for his delicious recipes of poached chicken and honey garlic spareribs.
Tony Chan's filmography is at: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=comm2230u&aq=f
See his essay on the Chinese in Canadian Encyclopedia: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0001588
Chan's contributes to Ginger Post (Toronto), a new online Chinese/Asian Canadian magazine.
Obscure writings: http://www.instrcc.ubc.ca/History485_2008/AnthonyChan.pdf