Chong Wong was born in Puerto Cortés, Honduras,[1] the eldest of five sons of two Chinese immigrants who had fled war-torn China in the 1940s.
[2] He attended schools in Puerto Cortés and San Pedro Sula, before going to Spain to study chemical engineering.
However, when his father died, he had to return to Honduras to help run the family's grocery store, as his mother spoke little Spanish.
[1][2] When Porfirio Lobo Sosa became President of Honduras in January 2010, Chong Wong was again appointed as Minister of Finance.
[5] A week before his death in June 2018, Chong Wong was named as one of the 38 people implicated in a corruption case filed by MACCIH, the anti-corruption agency of the Organization of American States (OAS).