Meet Hulunn Choo

Hulunn Choo is a speaker and educator on climate restoration and environmental sustainability living in Johannesburg and is also a Greenpeace Africa volunteer and activist.

Read more about why Hulunn is proud to be Chinese and a South African.

"As much as we want to preserve our traditions and keep our ways all in one circle. The world is changing and we have to move with it. We are integrating and I see the struggle of groups or nations or races trying to keep out those that are different and keep in those that are the same. It’s a transformation you cannot avoid, especially if you choose to settle in a country that speaks a different language and has different ways. You don’t ever have to fear losing your roots if you are planted in a different environment." ~ Hulunn Choo

Name: Hulunn Choo

Occupation: Speaker and educator on climate restoration and environmental sustainability

1. Where were you born?

The boat had docked from China and my grandparents decided to make Port Elizabeth their home. My father was born there and 23 years later, so was I.

2. What school/college/university did you attend?

I went to school in the east of Johannesburg. Back then I thought travel was more important than school and left.
I eventually matriculated through evening school at the age of 37.

3. What is your fondest childhood memory, growing up as a Chinese child?

At some crucial time in my life our grandmother raised us grandchildren. I remember the smell in her room of moth balls and books, Chinese sweets, and the sound or her fussing about in Moyanese.

My grandparents, uncles and great grandmother. My father is 5th from the left.

4. What is your favourite Chinese food?

So many, but I would have to say that my comfort food is water rice with grated sweet potato and seaweed paste.

5. Where do you live?

I live in Edenvale, Johannesburg.

6. What work do you do?

I speak and educate on climate change mostly to schools, but businesses as well. Education is definitely key. You can’t tell someone to not throw plastic away if they don’t know why. Awareness and then understanding is the essence of change.
I also hold workshops at schools and conduct an energy audit where the students join. I am currently busy with a school that has decided to install solar panels instead of using 100% fossil fuels.
I am also a Greenpeace volunteer and activist. I have been part of a panel for a youth day talk and been interviewed to talk on climate change. I also arrange a lot of the activities for the volunteers.

Educating learners at Pretoria Chinese School about solving climate change. February 2019.

7. What do you love about your job?

I love the diversity, and magnanimity of this field. We are living in amazing times where not only do we have so many issues, but that also means we have so much more room for growth and solutions. We are all going to have to face the facts and realize sooner rather than later that we are all in this together.
We need to accept that and move on with it if we are to get through our worldly struggles. When the climate crisis affects our life we will turn to each other to get through.

8. What is your proudest achievement?

Every time I take a leap of faith and leave something that is no longer in line with my growth and have the courage to admit that and move on, is an achievement.

9. Why are you proud to be South African?

Being South African to me means many things, it means I exist in a wonderful space of fresh air, Johnny Clegg, Braai potatoes, saying things such as ya, boet, yissy, is it and also many public holidays. I am as mixed race as it gets with a Chinese dad and an Afrikaans mother, and that is what being South African means to me.

10. Why are you proud to be Chinese?

I never knew I was Chinese when I was a kid. I never even knew my father was Chinese. I just saw people, not colours nor race. Now, being Chinese is like having that special card that you won’t swop, or finding R20 in your pocket as a kid. It means believing in reincarnation and ancient kings, tradition and Sandalwood rooms filled with prayers. Being Chinese just makes perfect sense.

11. Name one Chinese tradition that you’d like future generations to continue with?

This may not be a tradition but it sure is a treasure. I was blessed to have my grandmother living with us for a few years. That meant four generations under our roof. I only realised now that this is so precious for the young ones to experience.

My daughter Shia-Lun and I

12. What advice would you give to the Chinese youth today in South Africa?

As much as we want to preserve our traditions and keep our ways all in one circle. The world is changing and we have to move with it. We are integrating and I see the struggle of groups or nations or races trying to keep out those that are different and keep in those that are the same. It’s a transformation you cannot avoid, especially if you choose to settle in a country that speaks a different language and has different ways.
You don’t ever have to fear losing your roots if you are planted in a different environment.

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