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About the Author
Wee Chong Tan was born on January 6th, 1930 in Xiamen, China. He left China with his family in 1945. He received his Ph.D. in 1966 in Biochemistry from Indiana University. In 1968, after some post-doctoral work, he moved to England to study theology at St. John’s Hall, London (also known as the London College of Divinity) and was subsequently ordained into the Church of England in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. He then served his first curacy at St. James Sussex Gardens, London, while also working as a Fellow of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. He is a Life Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, Oxford. He was a visiting fellow of the Biochemistry Department of Oxford University.
He came to Victoria, Canada to become one of the founding faculty of Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific in 1973. In 1985, Dr. Tan took early retirement to found the Canadian College for Chinese Studies. It became the first full-time college teaching Traditional Chinese Medicine in Canada. In 1990, he founded the Joseph Needham Museum for Ancient Chinese Discoveries. Since 1985, the college has being receiving students, scholars, professionals and theologians individually or in delegations to come over to Canada to improve friendship and understanding between the two countries.
During the year 2000/2001, he was a visiting professor at Nanjing Union Theological Seminary in China. While in China he became a guest professor in Philosophy for the China Cultural Academy at Peking University. Being interested in organic farming, he became a fellow and professor at the China Agricultural University in Beijing during the same period. Dr. Tan founded one organic farm in China. Then in India, he was invited to become a Life Member of Indian History Congress in 2001. Shortly after returning to Canada, he became an associate fellow with the Royal Meteorological Society in England and became a member of the National Farmers’ Union in Canada. He has published books both in Chinese and English. In Victoria, he was on staff at St. John the Divine Anglican Church as an honorary assistant for over 30 years and retired as an Ecumenical Scholar Emeritus. Also, in September 2005, he was received into the Russian Orthodox Church of All Saints Alaska in Victoria into full Orthodox communion. He became Honorary Citizen of Victoria in November 2006.