[1][2] Bo Ching was born in Alameda County, California, to Edward "E.L." Park and Oie "Florence" Chan.
Her parents — born in the United States to Chinese immigrants — were actors; E.L. appeared as Charlie Chan in the 1924 film Behind the Curtain and later served as an interpreter for the county of Los Angeles, while Florence appeared in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s.
[2][3] After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley,[4] Bo Ching and her older sister, Bo Ling, performed in Las Vegas and around the country as a vaudeville act before settling in Hollywood and getting work as actors in the film industry.
[8][9] Bo Ching married William Tong — a Seabee with the U.S. Navy — in Los Angeles in 1945.
[12] She briefly came out of retirement for one role in the 1980s, appearing as Keiko's grandmother in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.