Early years Wong was born on 15 August 1952 in Hong Kong to a family descended from
Anxi County of
Fujian Province in China. Her father Wong Chun Chung was an
overseas Chinese from Singapore. Her mother Poon Chor Ying had been a journalist in
Vietnam and in Hong Kong was a teacher at
St. Stephen's Girls' College. Both had graduated from mainland China universities and were considered well-educated. Wong is the fourth child in the family. She has three elder sisters and two younger sister and brother. She spent her early years with her family in
Shatin and later moved to
Kowloon. After entering secondary school, Wong's family resided on
Lyttelton Road in
Mid-levels on
Hong Kong Island. Wong entered
St. Stephen's Girls' Primary School in 1962 and followed her sisters to enter St. Stephen's Girls' College, where their mother taught, in 1965. Wong had some classes with her mother, who also taught
Regina Ip and
Rita Fan, later
Secretary for Security of the Hong Kong government and the President of the
Legislative Council respectively. Wong once recalled that her mother's knowledge and attitude to life had deeply inspired her thinking that since secondary three, she had become a volunteer and once joined a gospel rehabilitation group for drug addicts to pay visit to the
Kowloon Walled City. In 1972, Wong graduated from the school and was soon successfully enrolled at the
University of Hong Kong studying
social work. At first, she was not given a room in any of the residential colleges because she lived too near to the campus. Only when she became a social secretary of
St John's College Students' Association in year three of study, she had the chance to move into St John's College. In the university, Wong was something of a
student activist and in 1973 joined a university visit the
mainland China. All these experiences influenced her deeply and she decided to commit herself to the field of social work upon graduation.
Legislative and Executive Councillor Wong's brilliance as a social administrator was soon noticed by Governor
Sir Edward Youde. In 1985, Sir Edward intended to reform the
Legislative Council through appointing professionals from different career sectors to the Council. Under the recommendation of Legislative Councillor,
Hui Yin Fat, Wong was appointed as unofficial member of the Legislative Council at a relatively young age of 33 and thus entering politics. Other unofficial legislators newly appointed in that year included
barrister-at-law Maria Tam, physician
Dr Henrietta Ip Man-Hing and so on. Since joining the Legislative Council, she had hold a large number of public duties which included court member of the University of Hong Kong,
Technical College (later Polytechnic University),
Baptist College (later Baptist University) and
City Polytechnic (later City University), member of the Hong Kong committee for
UNICEF, vice-patron of
Mother's Choice, member of the government's Standing Committee on Young Offenders and so on. Besides, from 1987 to 1988 she was appointed honorary advisor to the Social Welfare Department, member of government's
Law Reform Commission and
Broadcasting Authority from 1987 to 1990, appointed chairwoman of the
Social Welfare Advisory Committee from 1988 to 1991 and appointed the first chairwoman of the government's newly created
Commission on Youth from 1990 to 1991. Wong's work in the Legislative Council was deeply impressed by then Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council
Lydia Dunn (later Dame and Baroness) that under her promotion, she was further appointed as unofficial member of the government decision-making body, the
Executive Council by Governor
Sir David Wilson (later Lord) in 1988. and later on the
Queen's Birthday in 1990 she was made an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to the general public. However, in 1991 Wong suddenly retired from the two Councils and resigned all her public posts. She chose to further her study with her husband
Dr Alfred Tam Yat-chung in the United States, trying to save their marriage from divorce. Yet their attempt was fail and they divorced eventually in 1992. Although the divorce was a terrible blow to her, she was able to continue her study while took care of her two children alone. Finally in 1993, she obtained her master's degree of arts from the
University of California, Davis. A year before graduation, she was also awarded the prize of
Global Leader of Tomorrow. On the contrary, Baroness Dunn, the Senior Member of the Executive Council, was distanced by Governor Patten because she once supported the founding of the Co-operative Resources Centre, and thus her importance in the government faded gradually. Eventually in 1995, Dunn retired from the Council and chose to migrate to England. Wong then was selected to replace Dunn as the last Convenor (equivalent to the post of the Senior Unofficial Member) of the colonial Executive Council by Governor Patten. In the
1997 New Year Honours, she caught up the last chance before the
transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong that she was made a
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and therefore became a Dame. Wong was the second
Hong Kong woman, after Baroness Dunn, to be made a substantive Dame in history, and was the last person to receive a damehood in the colonial Hong Kong. She received the damehood from Governor Chris Patten in the
Government House on 19 April 1997. In the same year, Wong also received her doctorate of sociology from the University of California, Davis. She personally chose to call herself Dr. Rosanna Wong rather than Dame Rosanna Wong after 1997 in public occasions. Since Wong had close and intimate ties with the colonial government, there had been rumours before the transfer of sovereignty that she would not be allowed to serve in the new
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's Executive Council, or even the Housing Authority. . In September 1999, some blocks in
Tin Chung Court, a Home Ownership Scheme estate built by the Housing Authority in
Tin Shui Wai, were discovered with serious and
unusual settlement. Later in January 2000, a Home Ownership Scheme construction site in
Yuen Chau Kok,
Sha Tin was reported to have the same problem found in Tin Chung Court, and it became known that the
pilings of these affected blocks were much shorter than required. The short-piling scandals were followed by a series of discoveries of jerry-building. In March and May of the same year, constructions in the shopping centre of
Shek Yam Estate and in the site of Phase 3 of
Tung Chung Area 30 were reported extensive non-compliance respectively. The general public was deeply shocked by the series of scandals and the
Independent Commission Against Corruption soon carried out investigations into the housing scandals. Facing the housing scandals, as the chairperson of the Housing Authority, Wong vowed to grasp the opportunity to reform the bureaucratic and corrupted
Housing Department. However, she quickly became the target to be blamed by the public opinions. Many civil groups representing residents of the public housing estates reproached Wong for being incompetent to supervise the housing constructions and they demanded her and the Director of Housing,
Tony Miller to step down. She declared her resignation from the Housing Authority on 24 June 2000, and became the first government official to hold accountability and resign from the government of the Special Administrative Region before the introduction of
Principal Officials Accountability System. Four days later, the Legislative Council passed the motion of no confidence on her and Miller with a significant majority, however, Miller had never resigned. The scandal did not rest with the resignation of Wong. In February 2001, the Legislative Council set up a
Select committee to enquire into the whole matter in-depth. However, when Secretary for Housing, Dominic Wong gave evidences to the enquiry on 12 May, he rebutted what Wong had said. Dominic Wong explained that since 1988, it had been the Housing Authority who decided the target number of public housing flats to be built annually. The government itself had not been involved and therefore, figures forecasting the number of new public housing flats in each year's colonial
Policy Address had been provided by the Housing Authority instead. He further explained that the government had only started to make their own forecast since 1997, so it was not the case suggested by Rosanna Wong that the Housing Authority had to fulfill the target number of public housing flats demanded by the government. After two years of investigation, the Legislative Council's Select Committee released its report on the short-piling scandal in January 2003. Rosanna Wong, Dominic Wong and Tony Miller received differing degrees of censure in the report. However, the report did not recommend any punishment as it was up to the government to make the decision of whether to impose any punishment or not.
After-Housing Authority After resigning from the Housing Authority, Wong started to fade out from Hong Kong politics and retired from the Executive Council in 2002. Besides, she succeeded
Antony Leung as Chairperson of the
Education Commission from 2001 to 2007. In January 2001, Wong was employed as a non-executive director to the
Cheung Kong Holdings by Li Ka-shing and her employment aroused public concern. Some public opinions feared she had only stepped down from the Housing Authority for only seven months and it was inappropriate for her to be employed to a real property corporation. A few legislators also worried that Wong would no longer represent the interest of social workers by having a closer relationship with the business sector. Yet, she responded that she would only receive 5,000
HKD annually as director's emoluments from the directorship and she promised to bring the voice of the social work sector into the corporation. Since 2003, Wong has been appointed as a Hong Kong member of the
CPPCC National Committee of the People's Republic of China. There was some controversy within the pro-Beijing camp of Hong Kong over the appointment since it was the first time for Wong to be admitted to a mainland Chinese official organisation. Some criticised the fact that she had a pro-British background, while some said she had a close friendship with the former
Chief Secretary,
Anson Chan. However, all these criticism died out soon. ==Personal life==