Anthony B. Chan, PhD - Profile

            An accomplished journalist, filmmaker, scholar, writer, and academic leader, Anthony B. Chan is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle. He was born and raised in Victoria, B.C.
            Before entering academic life, Tony Chan was a Senior Producer and a television journalist for the English language division of Television Broadcasts Ltd., Hong Kong where he anchored Focus, a 30 minutes public affairs show and produced many documentaries. Chan also worked as a television reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina and Calgary. 
            His 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).The latter was shown at film festivals in Hiroshima, New York, Olympia and aired on PBS, KCTS-TV in Seattle. He has also produced The Panama (1996), Another Day in America (1989) profiling Japanese American women artists and jazz musicians and Chinese Cafes in Rural Saskatchewan (1985).
            Professor Chan’s most recent book is Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong, 1905-1961  (2003), which chronicles the amazing life and hard times of the legendary Chinese American actor, Anna May Wong. He has agreed to a film option for a biopic of Anna May Wong with Silver Dream Production in Pasadena. Chan is also part of a Beijing/Toronto screenwriting team, titled, “Once Upon a Time in Toronto.”
            His first biography examined the magical life and relentless business pursuits of the most famous Hong Kong deal maker who sold Star TV to Rupert Murdoch. Li Ka-shing: Hong Kong Elusive Billionaire was published by Oxford University (1996).
            He also wrote Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 1920-1928 (1982) and Gold Mountain: The Chinese in the New World (1983).  In 1997, he co-edited People to People: An Introduction to Communications.       
            Chan’s articles can be found in the 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.  He was the founding editor of New Scholars-New Visions in Canadian Studies and co-founded The Asianadian: An Asian Canadian Magazine.
            In an administrative capacity, he has served as the Director of the Canadian Studies Center and Chair of the B.A. and M.A. degree programs in Canadian Studies, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He was also the Head of Broadcast Journalism in the School of Communications at the University of Washington, Chair, Department of Mass Communication at California State University Hayward, and Assistant Coordinator, China Project Office at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada.
            Tony Chan’s other degrees include a Ph.D. in modern Chinese history from York University, a Diploma in Chinese from the Beijing Language Institute, an M.A. from the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Victoria.