Click to enlarge photos.

KENNESAW - Kennesaw State University assistant professor Ed Chan said that when he visited Japan at age 13 for a family wedding, he dragged his parents all over Tokyo to find a McDonalds.

"In my defense, I had been living in Saudi Arabia for four years so I hadn't had a lot of McDonalds," Chan said. "I was making up for lost time."

Nearly three decades after that trip, the well-traveled Chan is returning to Japan with a different agenda.

Chan, KSU assistant professor of English and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, was selected for the endowed Drake Guest Professor in Comparative Literature at Kobe College, a women's school in Japan.

He will spend a year at Kobe - about four hours south of Tokyo - teaching American literature and culture at the sophomore, junior and senior levels, as well as one graduate class.

Previously unfamiliar with the Japanese language, he took and earned an A in a freshman-level course during KSU's fall 2007 semester. He also is sitting in on another Japanese class until he leaves. Regardless, he'll be teaching five Kobe classes in English through March 2009.

Chan said he plans to use film, literature and television to explore cultural exchanges between Japan and the U.S., and to then gauge his students' perceptions.

One class, for instance, deals with cinematic "transactions" and will examine Japanese films influenced by American films and vice versa.

Chan recites such transactions with ease.

"Famously, Akira Kurosawa adapted King Lear to do his movie 'Ran;' his move 'Seven Samurai' was adapted to do 'The Magnificent Seven;' 'Yojimbo' was the inspiration for 'A Fistful of Dollars;' and more recently, Clint Eastwood directing 'Letters From Iwo Jima,'" the native of California said.

Chan's mother was Japanese and his father - a chemical engineer - was ethnically Chinese. They met in the United States during the 1950s.

Chan was born in 1967,and in 1978 his family moved to Saudi Arabia for his father's job with an Arabian-American oil company. He said he lived in a sequestered, military base-like setting there; he was taught by Americans and went to town occasionally.

Chan excelled at math and science in his youth and entered college at University of California, Riverside as a biology major.

"I told my parents I would try it out," he said. But his grades reflected a lack of interest. Eventually, he gravitated towards English, partially for its novelty.

He stayed in California to earn a master's degree and then attended the University of Rochester for a doctorate. Now, Chan is in his fifth year of teaching at KSU.

Chan said his cultural experiences have come into play more so in his last five years of research.

He said that his guest professorship fits well with Kennesaw State's "Get Global" initiative, for which he serves as a global learning coordinator.

The initiative, part of the university's Quality Enhancement Plan, increases global learning opportunities for students, faculty, staff and administrators.

kbrooks@mdjonline.com

Comment on this Story