[1] The only child of divorced parents, her initial forays into the world of entertainment came in the 1980s when her mother, a former Chinese teacher, started entering her into karaoke competitions, many of which she won.
Six months after exiting the talent competition, Joanna began pursuing a music career in earnest, landing her first regular singing gig in The Courtyard at Raffles Hotel.
In 2015, Dong collaborated with fellow Singapore Idol, Sezairi Sezali, on the first Mandarin and Malay pop track, ‘Starlight’, for Sing, Love, a SG50 musical project by Red Roof Records.
China,[5] in which she sang a jazz arrangement of Lo Ta-yu's classic Love Song 1990, and joined Team Jay alongside fellow Singaporean, and teammate Olinda Cho.
In 2008, she played leads in Mandarin comedy, The Soldier and his Virtuous Wife and Tan Kheng Hua's raunchy directorial debut, Do Not Disturb – Late Checkout Please.
She was also in the ensemble cast in Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress (2006), Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral (2010), Impending Storm: The Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree (2012), Lao Jiu: The Musical (2012) and Great World Cabaret (2015).
[12] In 2011, Dong took the lead in writer/director Wee Li Lin's sophomore feature effort, Forever as a video consultant who falls for a handsome music teacher.