The People
The seventeen million Zhuang of southwest China wear colorful ethnic clothing, which sets them apart from the Han Chinese majority. Famed for their love of singing, the Zhuang hold song festivals in which contestants sing riddles for one another to answer. Of Thai descent, Zhuang is a Thai-related language with twelve main regional dialects. The Zhuang are the world’s largest people group with no Bible in their language.
Their Lifestyle
Most Zhuang live in a remote, mountainous area of southern China, which makes reaching them with the gospel difficult. The sheer pinnacles, waterfalls, and pools familiar from Chinese paintings have earned their region the poetic description, “Number one under heaven.”
Their Beliefs
Rural Zhuang have an animistic, polytheistic worldview, believing that the spirit world controls them. They practice witchcraft and demon worship, and they worship stones, trees, mountains, birds, dragons, snakes, and their ancestors. Those who migrate to cities turn to atheism under communist influence. Only one-fourth of one percent of Zhuang are Christian.
The Gospel
Ethnic Chinese Christians from other Asian countries work as tentmakers—teachers, doctors, dentists, and businesspersons—seeking to reach the Zhuang for Christ. The Holy Spirit has used short-term mission teams of students to change the lives of many Zhuang.
Let's pray together for
- Fruitful summer mission teams, with effective local follow-up of those reached for Christ
- God to call translators to translate materials into the many Zhuang dialects so that they can understand the gospel
- Evangelists to take the good news of Jesus to remote Zhuang villages
- Zhuang Christians persecuted by the Chinese government
