Riding the Dragon
Education through storytelling
Know that my words here are a small scope on a much larger process involving many amazing people with stories and skills that have come together - and continue to - in order to build something magnificent. My wish is that, by the end of it, you feel inspired to share what we’re creating with others and perhaps even join.
Thank you,
Roel
They say no kid will pick up a book anymore.
They say 30-second videos fit the modern-day attention span.
But I’m a firm believer of our ability for telling great stories that cut through the dopamine thirst and leave in its wake seeds of imagination. Because that’s the power of books, to make us slow down far enough that it ‘kindles’ our creativity. Our ability to imagine and envision, to tap into our superpower of making the intangible come alive and fill it with meaning.
It was April 2024 when Cheryl approached me: “Roel, I have a bold idea. I want to increase the world population of Chinese language speakers. But here’s the catch: It must be innovative, done through an epic story, and most of all be cool for a younger generation.
Will you help me?”
I’ve always wanted to write to evoke and move people. I was about 12 years old when I first dreamed of writing a book that could change the world for the better. I let those dreams sail off to the shores of grandiosity. Far enough to no longer pursue, close enough to never lose out of sight. Eventually, I found a vessel in poetry, mostly musings that offer hope in challenging days. And then in 2020 started Voices Unleashed, a now global platform for people to explore their own creative voice. This platform has communities in New York, Santo Domingo, Amsterdam, and Bali. So in a way I believe I did change the world for the better through writing and bringing access to creativity.
But whenever someone would ask me: “Don’t you want to write a book?”, I’d give a lowball answer that some time - decades from now - I will. That when I’ve gathered enough wisdom the right story would find its way.
Never did I expect it would come swift and fierce in the Year of the Dragon.
See, every January I pick a word for the year. A word that can guide me and simultaneously be an anchor. Usually, these are abstract words like ‘resilience’ or ‘dare’. But in 2024 my chosen mantra was ‘Dragon’.
So when Cheryl and I sat down in April and she asked me to help her with this bold idea for a story, initially to flesh out the nine protagonists, I asked her for the name of the project. Without blinking, she answered: Dragon Academy. I blinked. Several times. I knew in that moment, a story found its way and asked me to grab hold of its antlers and ride the dragon.
By this point you might wonder: “What is Dragon Academy?”
For that, I’d like to share with you about Cheryl. Cheryl Lee Mainland is a true third-culture kid. Half Chinese and half American. She’s lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. She is a Harvard alumnus with an honors degree in East Asian Studies (focus on Chinese) and received an MBA from London Business School. Her ability is to make uncool things cool. She’s done this through multiple businesses and was part of successful mergers and exits. A truly bright mind with a loving heart.
As a mother of three, she desires for her children to speak Chinese but the traditional ways of learning - that she and millions of parents worldwide encounter - lack the stickiness factor. Learning Chinese simply isn’t cool. Private tutors, Saturday school, online learning environments, these methods are tedious and mostly fall short because they miss context and the joy of learning.
How does one create context? Story.
How does one create engagement? Relevance.
And so Dragon Academy brings story and relevance together in a novel series, a language learning app that relates to the book, and a media company for kids and adults to immerse themselves in a whole Dragon Academy universe.
If you need a comparison, think Harry Potter meets Pokémon, but with nine protagonists from all corners of the world, wrapped in Chinese myths, culture and language references.
My part in the Dragon Academy universe: Head writer. Write the book(s). Transmute the story Cheryl has in her heart and make it an epic. And so I got to work. It was both the most challenging and the most fun I’ve had in a working container.
How exciting to explore the psychography of nine cool teenagers? To feel into how they could walk this world (and the fantastical realms we conjure up for them), and what challenges they could face and overcome. How inspiring, to research Chinese idioms and legends dating back thousands of years? To be in awe of a culture’s depth and giddy to find the next mythical reference. How thrilling to review your favorite writers and directors in a new light to create character arcs that would even keep you as a writer at the edge of your seat.
And then finally, write. Write with the first light of day. Write with the only light, deep in the night, coming from the blue screen of a decade-old laptop. Write. Curse. Sing. Scratch. Make notes. Lose notes. Lingering notes. Tie it together into 170.000 words. Complete it in five months.
One of the things that fueled me throughout this process - that I can not omit when talking about Dragon Academy - was the birth of my daughter, Nalua. Like me, she’s born in the Year of the Dragon. And as every new dad would say, life hasn’t been the same since. It has become richer, more colorful, and a downright expansion of love. Her daily presence gave me so much energy and childlike wonder. So many times sitting with her gave me a new sentence or a spark. We were writing for a new generation, so how could she not be my biggest inspiration?
Then came the editing. For any author reading this, you know it. The editing process is like being in the trenches. Holes you dug, will have to be dug deeper. The territory changes. The paradisical landscape of your imagination on paper experiences its first rainy days. Sometimes thunderstorms. Sometimes hurricanes uproot your foundations and you have to start again. In the end, all the editing is necessary to produce the most fertile ground.
And fertile it is.
“Kids are not interested in reading anymore.”
You’ve likely seen the research, the dwindling literacy rates, the rise of short-form content because pictures and videos are easier to comprehend. Yet… We experienced the opposite.
We hosted reading parties where we gathered teens and teenagers. They were each given a bone-dry manuscript, the ones with an uninspiring courier font, and read along each chapter while we read the Dragon Academy story out loud. These kids were anything but bored. They were engaged. Excited. Eager. And curious as to how their input could help us shape the story further. Which is precisely what we did. We took many of their far-out-of-the-box ideas and infused them into the story we had.
The result so far has led to tons of messages from parents “My child now wants to learn Chinese!” or “Can you believe it? They can not put their book down.” or “When is the app coming?”.
Dragon Academy is now raising funds for a Series A round. The first book has been published and is available to order. The first edition of the app is set to release for spring 2025. Our socials are filled with content that teach and entertain. The dragon is alive.
The book above is not just Cheryl’s vision captured through my words. It holds images, doodles, a vault with etymology to legends and idioms, and a larger quest for the reader which have all come from the heart of the whole team.
In just a year’s time Cheryl has gathered a star team of beautiful minds with Chinese heritage, design, PR, marketing, AI, and curriculum backgrounds. But most of all we share a common drive to make learning the language a fantastical endeavor. My gratitude goes out to Cheryl and the team for being part of Dragon Academy and bringing it to life.
Concluding (for now), if you tell the right story, and you tell it right, you can hold attention in suspension, you can awaken the curious, you can teach and inspire.
Yours,
Roel
Why Chinese?
There are currently 30 million Chinese language learners worldwide. This number is set to increase to 300 million by 2050. With the shifts in the geopolitical landscape, building bridges in a time of growing canyons gives younger generations a chance to rewrite their circumstances. I believe, perhaps now more than ever, the next generation must be instilled with values resting on unity - and to provide them the inspiration and the tools to achieve it.
2025 is the Year of the Snake. A year of transformation. How we adapt to the changing global environment is a choice. Instead of pulling back, let us choose to expand like a new breath. Dragon Academy breathes new life into learning through context and story.
Recap of 2024
Click here for a video recap of last year from the design process to the app development, to the writing to the reading parties and more.
Join Dragon Academy as an Investor - Series A Round
Our aim is to increase the amount of Chinese speakers worldwide by 5% in five years. If you’d love to be an investor and become part of Dragon Academy, please reach out to cheryl@dragonacademy.com for further information.
I'm Roel Cruys. Writer, poet, community builder, and a lover of all things human nature.
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I've got my copy, looking forward to reading!! And congrats 🙌
Love this post! What an endeavor you’ve found. Or, found you. All the best, bro!