Chong

The Chong belong to the Pearic peoples, indigenous Mon-Khmer-speaking communities that have long inhabited the lowlands and mountain ranges between Thailand and Cambodia. Living in forested areas, they kept their own ways of life for centuries alongside larger peoples, such as the Thai and the Khmer.

Over time, ever closer contact with Thai society led many to adopt the language and customs of the majority. The Chong language is now spoken by few people and is the focus of revitalization efforts in Thailand.

Traditionally, the Chong live from what the land and the forest provide. In the hills of Chanthaburi, cardamom was an important plant for families, who also tend orchards and fields in the region. This knowledge of the forest has been passed from parents to children for generations.

Life revolves around the family and the village, where living alongside Thai neighbors is part of daily life. In this setting, the young often adopt the language and habits of the majority, while the elders keep songs, plant names and stories that are part of what it means to be Chong. There are recent efforts to record the language and teach it to new generations.

The faith of the Chong usually combines Buddhism, practiced throughout the region, with ancient beliefs in the spirits of the forest, the home and the ancestors. The Buddhist temple marks festivals and important moments in life, and at the same time families seek to keep at peace the spirits on whom the harvest and health depend.

For many, following these traditions is part of being a good son or daughter and a good neighbor. For this reason, faith is lived more as an inherited custom and a bond of community than as a studied system of doctrines. This opens room for sincere conversations about who God is, as long as there is friendship and respect.

The Chong language is spoken by few people and has very little written material, since it only recently received a written form, based on the Thai alphabet. This means that many Chong hear and read the Word, when they hear it at all, in Thai. Audio recordings in the language of their own hearts would be an especially valuable path for families who are ceasing to use their language.

For many Chong, being Buddhist and being part of the community go together, and leaving the practices of the village can sound like abandoning one’s own family. The small, scattered population makes it hard for anyone to devote time to learning the language and culture. There is also very little Christian material in Chong, and few nearby churches that speak their language. Many may never have met anyone who introduced Jesus to them in a clear and friendly way.

The Chong people need, above all, to be known and to be visited by friends who respect them and learn from them. There is a need to value their language and cultural memory, both threatened today, and for access to education and opportunities without this meaning the loss of their identity.

On the spiritual level, they lack Scripture in their own language, witnesses who know them closely, and a community of faith in which they can grow as Chong and as followers of Jesus.