This year’s HES winners are going to undertake 2, 3 or 6 months language study in Taiwan. Benjamin Drake, for example, a Mandarin language student at the University of Queensland and the president of the university’s Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Club, won a six-month HES scholarship. He has a great love of calligraphy and he previously spent a semester studying Chinese at the Mandarin Training Centre at National Taiwan Normal University, and he was eager to return and continue studying there. This scholarship will allow him to continue improving his Mandarin, and catch up with friends has made in Taipei.

Another HES winner, Thomas Williams, will be studying Mandarin for 2 months at National Taiwan Normal University. He has been working as a Morrison Scholar at the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University, and plans to begin an MBA program at Tsinghua University in September this year as part of a General Sir John Monash Scholarship.

All the scholarship winners will have a wonderful opportunity to better understand Taiwan, and Taiwanese people, and experience Taiwan’s vibrant culture.