Chong developed a deep interest in Physics when he grew up in Gweizhou. He was admitted to the university due to his performance in Physics Olympiad competitions. Starting from Year 0, he worked with Prof. T. K. Ng on various topics in condensed matter theory. He started by reading background materials on a number of advanced topics, such as phase transitions, Fermi liquid theory and superconductors. He is not satisfied with working on problems which he only understands partially; he wants to go directly to the heart of the problem. He has the ability to conquer complicated mathematical problems, and at the same time provide explanations with clear physical pictures. In the work leading to his award, he studied the exclusion effect in interacting fermions using the bosonization method, and showed that effective interactions predicted by the phase shift method can exist.