Shong Lue Yang was a popular messianic leader and teacher of a Hmong writing system in Laos. During the time that Shong Lue Yang was teaching in the 1960s, there were over 300,000 Hmong in Laos.

Gradually, Yang chose Hmong and Khmu teachers to help him teach and he also built a school. As the news spread of his work, the Communist government heard about Shong and his teaching. They saw Shong as a threat because of his invention of a Hmong writing system, and were out to kill him. He was pursued first by the Vietnamese Communists, but is believed by some to have been killed by anti-Communist Hmong. He had been accused by both sides of assisting the other. Today, Shong Lue Yang's Pahawh Script for the Hmong language continues to be taught in the Hmong community in California, Minnesota and elsewhere.

(Most of the information for this bio was derived from Mother of Writing: the origin and development of a Hmong Messianic script by Smalley, W. A., Vang, C. K and Yang, G. Y. University of Chicago Press, 1990). The bio was composed by Ka Yang.