In his twenties, Chuang studied fine arts at National Taiwan Normal University, where he learned about Eastern painting traditions.
[2] Che felt that there was more that could be brought to Eastern painting, and so when he graduated in 1958, he joined several other artists, including Liu Guosong, Fong Chung-Ray, and Sun Duoci, and became one of the first members of the Fifth Moon Group (which had been founded two years earlier).
These ideals appealed to Chuang, who wanted to add something modern to the Eastern sensibilities he had been taught first by his father and then in school.
[citation needed] In 1966, Chuang was awarded a John D. Rockefeller III Foundation travel grant, which allowed him to move to the United States and study art.
[1] In New York, Che was surrounded by contemporary artists, exposing him to Western painting styles - the most popular of the time being Abstract Expressionism.