In 2021, Chiwa Lee left Hong Kong; it was a separation from the city he had loved, now being reshaped by forces beyond his control. “My sadness and disappointment toward the change in Hong Kong drove me to make clear how the rise of China is changing the world order and global landscape,” Lee said. This led him to Seattle, where he eventually enrolled in the Jackson School’s master’s program in China Studies.
At the Jackson School, he discovered a community where different perspectives thrived. Class discussions were as invigorating as they were challenging, encouraging Lee to rethink his assumptions about governance and culture. “This learning environment stimulates us to rethink what subjectivity and objectivity are and sharpens our ability to see many sides of an issue,” Lee said.
Chiwa Lee
These experiences also taught him the importance of rebooting, which would later become his personal motto when learning French. “Learning French as my third or fourth language is a process of ‘rebooting’ or ‘undoing’ myself rather than just updating an old version,” Lee, a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellow (Academic Year 2023-2024) in French from the Canadian Studies Center said, adding that “I have to abolish or blur my logic and not ask why a ‘table’ is feminine and a ‘book’ is masculine in the noun’s gender.”
According to Lee, the nuances of French and its complexities surprisingly mirrored his research on the Chinese government.
“What the Beijing government has done to Hong Kong in recent years ‘made no sense’ either,” Lee said. “My interest is to understand why and how these make sense to the Chinese government. Rethinking the Chinese government is also a process of ‘rebooting’ myself.”
Lee encourages other Jackson School students to apply to FLAS, noting that language learning and area studies opens doors to deeper understanding. “Learning foreign languages empowers our language competence, which is a powerful tool for understanding different cultures,” Lee said. “Area study enriches our knowledge of different social and political systems in the world. These two integrated elements also sharpen our interdisciplinary lens, which we learn from the Jackson School.”
FLAS Fellowships at the University of Washington are open to undergraduate and graduate students and are administered by the Canadian Studies Center, the East Asia Center, the South Asia Center, and the Center for Southeast Asia and its Diasporas. Fifteen languages are eligible for fellowship awards in the current application cycle. Apply by Jan. 31, 2025 for a FLAS fellowship for Summer 2025 and AY 2025-26. Fellowship amounts total up to $8,500 for summer awards and up to $15,000 (undergraduate) or $38,000 (graduate) for academic year awards. The U.S. Department of Education FLAS fellowships program is funded under Title VI of the Higher Education Act. Want to learn more about FLAS at the UW? Email Rita Bashaw at flas@uw.edu.
