Chong-Sik Lee was a Korean American political scientist specializing in East Asian studies.
19 Facts About Chong-Sik Lee
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Chong-Sik Lee was the oldest son of a primary school teacher.
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Chong-Sik Lee spent a number of years in his childhood in Manchuria, in Liaoyang and Tieling.
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Chong-Sik Lee's father went missing in March 1946, when he was 14 years old, making him the eldest male in the house.
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Chong-Sik Lee's family escaped to Seoul in South Korea in 1950.
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Chong-Sik Lee had never graduated from middle school, but independently searched for learning opportunities constantly.
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Chong-Sik Lee was never able to graduate from either school, although Kyung Hee eventually awarded him an honorary bachelor's degree in October 2014.
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Chong-Sik Lee later claimed that they had first offered him an honorary doctorate, which he declined it, as he already had a doctorate.
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Chong-Sik Lee learned Chinese and Japanese while doing odd jobs.
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Chong-Sik Lee later wrote an article about his method for learning other languages well in 1995.
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In 1954, Chong-Sik Lee entered the University of California, Los Angeles, making him one of the first Korean Americans to do so.
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Chong-Sik Lee earned both a bachelor's and master's degree from the school, and was accepted into the PhD in Political Science program at the University of California, Berkeley in 1957.
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Chong-Sik Lee joined the political science department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1963 and taught the university's first course in Korean studies.
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Chong-Sik Lee was Eminent Scholar at Kyung Hee University, Research Professor at Korea University, and the Yongjae Chair Professor at Yonsei University.
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Chong-Sik Lee researched major figures in modern Korean history such as Syngman Rhee, the first president of Korea; Lyuh Woon-hyung, a Korean politician and reunification activist in the 1940s; and Park Chung Hee, the third president of Korea, who seized power through a military coup.
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Chong-Sik Lee was the author of The Politics of Korean Nationalism and Kim Kyu-sik ui saengae, Seoul: Shingu Munhwasa, 1974.
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Chong-Sik Lee has contributed to China Quarterly, Asian Survey, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of International Affairs and other periodicals.
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Chong-Sik Lee published an autobiography in 2020 that covered his life until 1974, but "left out the rest of the stories for next time".
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Chong-Sik Lee died at 9:15 am on August 17,2021, in Philadelphia, at the age of 90, from complications from myelodysplastic syndrome.