Marketing exec, mum and kid-lit author Suzanne Younan is kicking off the Year right by bringing her Green Dragon and his environmental message to Lantau, Elizabeth Kerr reports.
Hongkongers go through over five million plastic bottles every single day. As outrageous as that sounds, it inspired former marketing executive turned children’s author Suzanne Younan to establish the volunteer organisation Green Dragons HK. “I thought that had to be a typo, or an error. I didn’t think that could even be possible,” Suzanne opens. She checked and double checked, and kept coming up with the same number, and she boggled each time.
A native of Berkshire in the UK, Suzanne relocated to Hong Kong with her then-seven-year-old son and her husband a decade ago for work, though by then she’d given up her marketing career, at one point with Oracle, to be a full-time mum. As a newcomer getting the lay of the land, Hong Kong was quite a surprise. “I was amazed to find so many beautiful green trails and hikes,” she says. “I’m very active. It’s part of my DNA. I’m into tennis and badminton, I hike a lot, I swim a lot. It’s important to keep your serotonin levels up and it helps with the creative process. I love to be out in nature.”
GREEN DRAGONS HK
Starting out in Hong Kong, Suzanne was lucky enough to find friendly neighbours willing to help her ease into a new life. Which is where her first brush with dragon boating came in. Despite a slight fear of the deep ocean, Suzanne accepted when some of those same neighbours invited her to join a team.
“I needed a community and people around me. I was feeling isolated. I’d never heard of dragon boating but I went for a trial. I still wasn’t sure, but the team, it was all women, was very welcoming, so I stuck with it. I had a huge knot in my stomach for weeks.” The cold weather waves of winter training were daunting, but Suzanne got over it. It got her outdoors – and it opened her eyes to the depth and breadth of Hong Kong’s plastic problem.
Then Typhoon Hato hit in 2017. Suzanne responded to a call-out for a beach clean-up in Stanley after the storm and was blown away by what she saw. “It was just horrific. I was in tears, and realised what a huge issue this is. These days when I do book talks in schools, I tell kids it’s like Mother Nature used all her force and threw all this trash back at us. If everyone would go to a beach after a typhoon…”
When it happened again a week later, Suzanne decided to leverage her dragon boat community act on reducing the amount of plastic that makes its way to the ocean. Who better to stump for safeguarding the water than the people on it all the time? So Suzanne reached out to Plastic Free Seas for advice on creating Green Dragons HK. The organisation’s volunteers now strive for a plasticfree dragon boat community by eliminating single-use plastics from training and festival events – and advocating for water stations with event organisers.
COVID was a step back; many prevention measures recommitted us to single-use plastic, so Suzanne admits there’s an element of starting over at play now. “There’s a lot of apathy. I can be standing there talking to a team and looking at someone sipping from a single-use bottle.” But Green Dragons HK isn’t giving up, despite the challenges.
WILLY THE GREEN DRAGON
Suzanne was sure there was more she could do, and back in 2019 she struck upon Willy the Green Dragon. Kids are the key to a greener future so she decided she had to talk to them.
“Children need strong messages. The Green Dragon stories are based on facts, true events and Hong Kong history. It’s another tool to get the plastic message out and give kids a voice.”
Suzanne kept the self-published Green Dragon (www.dracoviridi.com) series on the down low for a long time. She was confident in her imagination and ability to craft a story kids would respond to because she started writing as a child herself, as a creative outlet, and made up stories for her son. Oliver Jeffers’ (Lost and Found) brand of simple but moving stories served as a guide, and Suzanne admits she got lucky during the publishing process. But she was still on a steep learning curve.
“Luckily, Hongkongers are very generous with their time, and they’ll happily introduce you to people you might need to know. The first book, The Green Dragon, was very well received and it’s still the best seller.” The Green Dragon is an introduction to Willy, his friends and an overview of the impact plastics have on Hong Kong’s seas.
Having published one book, Suzanne thought – “Great. Mission accomplished” – but the weekend picnic waste she saw when hiking in Aberdeen Country Park lit a new fire. “Everything is plastic: the tablecloths, the seat covers, the barbeque trays. Even though there are enormous bins, right there, everyone just leaves everything behind for someone else to deal with. By Sunday night the wild animals have got to it. It’s a mess.”
Needless to say, The Green Dragon and the ‘Oh No’ Bird, The Green Dragon and the Rumbly Island, and The Green Dragon and the Angry Monkeys followed. The series, illustrated by Caroline Lewington and Janaka Srimal, reveals how Kowloon reservoir brought wild monkeys to the city, why buffalo in Mui Wo wander into shops, and how a ballet dancing wild boar can’t control his appetite due to the vast amount of garbage left in the country park.
THE NINE MIGHTY DRAGONS
2023 was a great first year for Willy the Green Dragon, with Suzanne reaching 2,382 students on book talks at local schools. And she’s not stopping there. Year of the Dragon, 2024 will welcome the first two volumes in her new 10-part series of children’s books also starring Willy and inspired by the nine dragons – gau-lung, or “Kowloon” for newbies. Appropriately titled The Nine Mighty Dragons, Willy will meet a new dragon in each – beginning on Lantau – and examine a specific environmental theme.
The adventure-filled fantasy stories take place in various “lands” that will closely resemble real countries across the world. They’ll also be sensitive to mental health in children, aiming to entertain and empower kids without overwhelming them.
For now, with seven books complete, Suzanne is ready to get to the business of layout. She has a way to go, but she’s excited about this next, erm, chapter of her second career. The question must be asked however: is it worth the effort? Is there hope for us and our collective plastic obsession?
“I have to think so, otherwise it’s just too depressing,” she finishes, looking slightly scandalised at the idea we’ll all be sinking in PET a generation from now. “I think the imbalance between people who care and who don’t – or who care sometimes – now favours the former. But you know, in Victorian times everyone felt overwhelmed by all the horse poop during horse-and-carriage days. Everyone was sure there was nothing they could do about it, but things change. I hope that’s where we are now.” She pauses. “I hope these books are obsolete one day.”
“Children need strong messages. The Green Dragon stories are based on facts, true events and Hong Kong history. It’s another tool to get the plastic message out and give kids a voice” – SUZANNE YOUNAN