Past Scholarship Recipients

Xiaoshan Huang:

"It's a great honor to receive 2007 Shi Ming Hu Memorial Freshman Scholarship. This award not only supports me financially on my school payment, but also ratifies my hard work and encourages me to continually work hard on all of my college courses. I am currently a mathematics major student, and I am going to register a second major in AMS, and intend to get a master degree within five years. It might seem quite difficult to finish the massive load of courses within five years, but I will do my best to reach my goal. Good time management and organization skills will help me to do better on my college study. Shi Ming Hu Memorial Freshman Scholarship motivates me to work hard academically indeed. I really appreciate scholarship commitees giving me this award."

Patricia Ng:

"During my sophomore year at Stony Brook, I decided to become a Chinese Studies minor because I wanted to learn more about my heritage. Before as a Chinese American I was hesitant to identify myself as Chinese, but after taking several Chinese courses, I built a stronger sense of self and now I can confidently embrace my culture. As I complete my junior year of college, I find that Chinese Studies will be a great asset in my pursuit for a career medicine. Due to my increased knowledge of Chinese values and holistic medicine, I have a greater understanding of different cultures and I can now be a better physician. After winning the Shi Ming Hu Memorial Scholarship for the Spring 2007 semester, I now can continue my studies at Stony Brook and hopefully fulfill my dream of becoming a doctor."

Jian Fang:

"I was the recipient of the Shi Ming Hu Memorial Leadership Award for the 2006/2007 Academic Year. In my sophomore year, I met several friends with the same interest in Chinese literature in my Chinese class, I co-founded the Stony Brook Chinese Literature Club (CLC) with them in December 2004, served as the Club’s secretary from Spring 2005 to Spring 2006, and in Fall 2006 I became the president.

"Ever since CLC started, it had become a big part of my school life. In the past two and half years, more and more students have become our club members. Everyone gathered with the love of Chinese literature and Chinese culture. We have reading week, debate tournament, panel discussion, Jeopardy and other games as the content of every week’s general meeting. We also held a lot of big events such as Lantern Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese New Year Celebration, lectures by high-profile Chinese language writers and so on. Every academic year, CLC publishes an annual journal called “Enlightenment”. Our regular members contribute their time and effort to finish all the work from composing poetries, proves and novels to editing and graphic designing. By using literature as our platform, students showed their talents and creativities.

"Today, CLC has become bigger, stronger and more diversified. I am proud to be the president of this club. But all of this happened because of the support from students, and faculties from Department of Asian and Asian American Studies. Under the china Studies program, people from China are able to keep studying Chinese literature, and others are able to learn basic Chinese and better understand Chinese culture. Then it gives us the opportunity to meet fellows with same interests, also to show and understand our unique bilingual, bi-literate, and bi-cultural experiences with everybody else in this school."

Brad J. Reid:

"I was the recipient of the Shiming Hu Memorial Chinese Studies Scholarship for the 2004/2005 Academic Year. As a History Major (and Chinese Studies Minor) my coursework naturally gravitated towards Chinese History. I've learned that China's past was not a solitary one, and any student of History or Political Science could learn a great deal from that nation's ideological and political struggles in the 20th century. My studies also included the Mandarin language. As the two largest economies in the world, the interactions between China and America will only increase - and just as knowledge of Japanese was valued in the 1980s, so too will Mandarin be an asset in the 21st century. I've come to realize, as I've reviewed my options for my post-college life, that no matter what field I choose, a familiarity with Chinese culture and language could prove invaluable."

Vanessa Maybeck:

"I am a Chinese Studies minor from the Class of '04. The program has taught me to face, appreciate, and learn from diversity. My interest stemmed from a student travel experience in high school, and interaction with a Chinese pen-pal. Receiving the Shi Ming Hu Memorial Scholarship in 2002 was only the first of the rewards a dedication to this program has yielded. I am currently studying BioScience Enterprise at Cambridge where the cross cultural and language skills from this program were among the selling points of my application. The Biotechnology industry is a very competitive market, where slight advantages, such as the ability to interact with international partners gives job applicants an edge of pure scientists."

Jim Li:

"This is my third semester as the student supervisor and coordinator for the Chinese library at SBS building 5th floor N503, which offers the AAS 488 Internship under Professor Agnes He. I was honored to be nominated by her last year and received the Leadership Award of Spring 2004. As of now, I'm very interested in applying for the Chinese minor and the Asian and Asian-American Studies major (when it's offered in the FALL 2005 semester). I firmly believe that the China Studies at Stony Brook will help me tremendously in the future and play a significant role in my academic career."

Guochiuan Wang:

"I was the recipient of the 2005 Shiming Hu Memorial Leadership Award. I have touched Chinese Literature since I was young. However, I started to indulge in the study of Chinese Literature only after I had a chance to take some courses relating to China and Chinese Language at Stony Brook University. Several friends and I came up with the idea of setting up the Chinese Literature Club. Through our efforts, Chinese Literature Club (CLC) has been a registered Club at Stony Brook University since December 2004. I am always excited to discuss about Chinese Literature with my friends. The China Studies at Stony Brook is really influential to me."

Aileen Chou:

"I am a senior graduating in May 2006 with a degree in Psychology and a minor in China studies. I started off in college not knowing what to major or minor. All I knew was that I had to finish up my D.E.C.'s and Skill requirements, so I was looking for an easy Skill 3 (language). When I was five I attended Chinese school and I thought "great, here's my A". Sadly it wasn't as easy as I had hoped, nor could I recall all that I learned, 18 years ago. To my surprise, CHI 211 and CHI 212 were fun and interactive. We didn't just learn about how Mr. Huang Da Ming went about his day loving his new book bag, we developed fun skits that went along with the vocabulary that mattered, like healthcare and insurance, etc.

China studies courses are not cut and dry that only involved history and language, it includes a wide range of areas like theatre, cinema, etc. Even the history courses were interesting and fun, like AAS 220. For my final project, I didn't have to read 30 books and write a research paper, instead my friends and I went out to restaurants, collected recipes, interviewed chefs and contrasted the current recipes with their original recipes and interpreted the changes that were made to meet society's demands.

Other history courses included Asian American courses like AAS 250 and PHI 378, where I learned about the struggles of Asian Americans like myself. I learned about the prejudice and the hate crimes that were inflicted on Asian Americans and I asked "why does this happen and is it still happening now?" Why didn't I learn about this while we learned about Europeans and Africans in America?

These questions steered me in the direction of my Psychology Honors project. My advisor and I are developing a new task to determine whether or not people have certain prejudices and stereotypes without the subjects even knowing. For the future, I plan on going to graduate school in Psychology to conduct research focusing on Asian and Asian American issues. Before heading into the six year program, I am taking a year off to go to China/Taiwan to teach English through a Fulbright scholarship or another program.

I did not intend on China Studies changing my life, but it did. That is why I encourage you as a Chinese American to enroll in the CNS program and get in touch with who you are and where you come from. For everyone else, you should enroll to learn about other cultures and broaden your horizons. I'm not telling you to follow my steps, but to be inspired by the wonderful courses we have to offer and have fun finishing your D.E.C.'s while you do it. "