Ming Na Wen born on 20 November 1963 in Coloane Island, Macau. Her mother Lin Chan Wen divorced her father when Ming-Na was a child. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce, they moved to Hong Kong where her mother became a nurse. There her mother met Soo Lim Yee, a Chinese-American businessman. They soon married and at the age four, Ming-Na moved with her family to Queens, New York. Ming Na graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1981.

Five years later, they transferred to Yee's hometown of Pittsburgh where his family run the Chinatown Inn restaurant. Struggling to fit in at school, she changed her name to Maggie & Doris. She found a love for acting while appearing in a third grade Easter play, where she played a "klutzy" bunny. Her mother was not excited about her desire to pursue acting; she preferred that she go into medicine. Nonetheless, Ming Na graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in theatre.

In 1988, Actress Ming Na got her first acting job on the soap "As the World Turns". Her big break came in 1993 when she was cast in “The Joy Luck Club”. She appeared in a wide variety of films, including 1994’s “Street Fighter: The Movie”, 1997’s “One Night Stand”, and the 1998 Disney animated film “Mulan”. Ming-Na married her boyfriend, Eric Michael Zee in 1995.

She was one of the very first Chinese American actresses to have a contract role on the TV series "As the World Turns".