Hey guys! Welcome to a Q&A video. I asked you for your questions on Twitter,
and you replied with the #askSharla. So I'm going to look them up right now.
I got quite a few questions but I'm gonna try and answer,
not all of them, I definitely can't answer all of them, but I'll answer as many as possible,
so if you guys would like to participate in the next question and answer, you didn't
get a chance to this time, go follow me on twitter because that's how I always ask
for questions. All right let's get started.
When will you do a fan mail video? I'm actually
waiting for all of my fan mail to be sent to me. I have a gigantic pile of it
growing in my room but this will be my last mail video for a while because my
p.o box is now closed.
So yeah. I'm waiting for the last packages to arrive so that I can make
sure I include everything in the video, and then I will do it. So I can't really tell
you guys when that will be but ASAP, I promise.
When will you come to Germany? I already went to Germany. It was really
really fun. Yeah I was in Germany for three days and it was amazing. If you
haven't seen the vlogs of that yet, I will link them right here.
Go check them out, I had an amazing time. I went together with Memei and even though it
was such a short trip,
we just had an amazing experience. Great people, great food, great architecture.
Germany is gorgeous, man.
So yeah go check out those videos. Ok i thought this question was really interesting.
It's a long question so I'm just going to kind of give you the gist of what it says.
but if you have to start your life over from when you first came to live in Japan,
you can only choose one of these perks, which would it be? 1) You can have Maro with you;
2) You can start with the number of subs you have right now;
3) start with your in real life friends that you have now in Japan,
both YouTube and daily life or 4) start with your hubby and wedding planned;
5) start with your accumulated goods items, furniture, clothing, etc.
I wouldn't want to start with the number of subs i have for sure, because i really
enjoyed all the different feelings of the community, like when I had a really
small sub count it was a totally different feeling than it is now.
I could reply to all the comments and i had memorized
everybody's names and it was just a completely different experience and I
wouldn't trade that for anything so I definitely wouldn't want to start with
the number of subs that I have. It would definitely be a choice between starting
with my friends or starting with my husband.
Ahhh... I can't choose both want to choose both because it would be really fun to
like experience all the things that I experienced up until now but with them
that would be so cool. I'm using both, I don't want to pick one. Favorite Japanese
girls/boys names? Rei is my favorite name overall, my favorite japanese name.
I think it would suit anybody, it's just really cool name all around, I love it.
Probably because i was a really big fan of Evangelion, like back in the day in high school,
so that's like always been a name that I wanted to name my kid. [On screen: #weeb4lyfe]
What's the funniest thing Maro has done now? Maro is always doing funny things.
Oh my god, man. One of my favorite things is how he growls every time somebody
rings the doorbell.
I swear he's half dog or all dog.
He's such a dog, like his personality is so dog and not cat, it's really weird.
I think the funniest thing he's ever done would probably be this.
I just found him like that in the morning one day.
Like what? I don't even know.
For a first time visitor of Japan, which is the best region to visit? I heard that the north of Japan is amazing.
Yes I always recommend the north of Japan to people.
It's beautiful. There are less people, so less crowded.
The weather is slightly more tolerable in the summer, if you here in the summers,
because it's a slightly cooler up there, but like 1) is because it's so
beautiful, there are so many nice places to visit. I have a playlist of northern
Japan spots to visit, so maybe check that out if you do decide to go there.
I prefer it to Tokyo but it all depends on like what kind of experience you want
to have. If you want to have a very like pop culture experience, then of course
Tokyo is better cuz you know Harajuku and Shibuya. But if you want more like a
traditional, outdoorsy type of experience, then definitely Tohoku, northern Japan.
Which food can you not do without?
Mine's avocado.
I love avocados, but more than avocados, I love broccoli and tofu. Picking one is
really hard, I like them together. If I had to pick one it would probably be broccoli.
What's your favorite Pokemon?
i like Paras, Jolteon and Raichu. It's really hard for me to pick an ultimate
favorite. Jolteon is pretty darn cute.
Oh I'm leaning towards Jolteon for an ultimate favorite, but Paras is
pretty awesome too. It's so hard to choose. I don't know man.
All three of them! Thoughts on the LGBTQ+ community? That's such a general question.
My thoughts?
The first thing that comes to mind is that it's a really amazing community of
supportive people that are proud to be themselves. And every time I attend like
an LGBTQ+ event, like say pride parade or like I go to a gay club,
I always had such an amazing time. Everyone is so happy and I just love it. I
love being like a part of that community, even though I'm not a part of it myself.
But I love attending events and just giving my support wherever I can because
yeah I think it's a really lovely community.
How do you like to spend your alone time, if you manage to get any? I have lots of
alone time.
My fiancé is always at work. He gets home at about 11pm on average, so I have
lots of alone time. If you meant like how do I spend my free time, I like to spend
it watching horror movies,
because I love horror movies or just like wasting time on Netflix because i like
to relax by watching like some type of movie or drama or something like that,
but in general,
yeah I'm like always working on something or playing with Maro.
Aww Maro came in. Maro, you want to join the video?
Hey that's a perfect spot. They can see you too. Maro, say hi or go behind me,
Even better. What are you doing? You...Oh you like that pillow better. Ever since I
bought these pillows,
he's been so happy. Yes lick yourself, that's great. Okay I'm just gonna cover
him. How did you get over the fear of using Japanese, for example, ordering food in a restaurant?
I get so nervous. I can totally relate with that.
Ummm...with Japanese I feel like I've never really been nervous
with it just because from the start I had lots of people to practice with.
However with other languages like Korean I kind of feel nervous about using it,
because I'm not like a hundred percent confident in my pronunciation and I feel
like I'm not going to make any sense.
So I totally understand if you feel that way about your Japanese. Honestly I think
if you can make some Japanese friends and talk with them and practice, that's
the best way because if you make nice friends,
you're having a conversation with them you're Japanese can be like way off and
they're not going to make fun of you or you know, they're going to help you out
and they're going to correct you and you're gonna learn from that and then I
feel like you'll be more confident out in public when you have to talk to
people you don't know personally. That's really the only advice I can give myself
because that's how I did it really. I had tons of conversation partners in
university that I practiced Japanese with and I...all my part time jobs, I
interacted with Japanese people,
the customers. And I just got used to it from practice. It's just all practice
Just go for it. Like, I really really doubt that you're going to get anybody that's
going to laugh at your Japanese or like laughing your pronunciation.
You don't need to worry about that here. Everyone's going to be like super
impressed that you can speak any Japanese at all, so just go for it.
How are the wedding plans coming?
They're not. God, I'm so bad at planning stuff. I've been so busy I...Like we haven't
had time to sit down and discuss anything.
We were just saying the other day that, [Annotation: Cat's hair everywhere D;]
I think it would be best to just have something small in Canada.
Even though we both want to do something like bigger as well as like a small
family get-together in Canada but... I don't know man. I'm so busy,
he's so busy, we just don't have time to sit down and discuss it. So nothing has
changed since the last time I mentioned it.
Ugh...why wedding so difficult? What are some of your hobbies besides youtube and filming?
I like watching movies. I really like watching horror movies.
I used to really like drawing neopets. But i haven't had time to recently, but I
feel like if I had more time I would really want to get into drawing again.
And i just got this new iPad. I invested in this because my laptop is packing it in
and I kind of wanted something else that I could do work on, like thumbnails and
tweets and all that kind of stuff. I figured I do that on the iPad and kind
of save my Mac for work but...Yeah I thought it would be really cool if I
could start like practicing digital art again on this or something, so...we'll see
if I can find any time but yeah I really like drawing in art and all that stuff.
If you have to describe what the living in Japan is like with three Japanese
words, what would it be?
This is a very unique question, I like this one.
'Benri' is the first one that comes to mind and it's also the one Japanese
word that I feel like my pronunciation is the weirdest because it's really hard
to do the 'en' sound and then the 'ri', the 're', the 'r', the 'r' and 'l' mixture, sound after
one another. But...yeah, 'Benri', convenient. Living here is ridiculously convenient.
And I love that about it. Japanese people are insanely busy with their work lives
so, to make up for that, there are lots of really cool things that are super
convenient. A lot more convenient than it would be in another
country just because the majority of people don't have time to do anything
here. So convenience stores are amazing, if you need anything, they will sell it there.
The train system is always on time and when it's not on time there'll be
announcements telling you exactly why it's late and everything.
The vending machines everywhere outside. Just lots of little things that add up
to feeling like it's really convenient to live here. Look, like, if I want something,
it's just so easy to be able to go out and get it at any time.
This isn't really like an adjective but i would say 'Bunka' because there's so much
culture here, there's so much going on. There's such a history here.
So many cool festivals to experience and like old places in Japan to visit and
learn about.
and I just really love all the cultural stuff going on in Japan, it's really
interesting for me, just because it's so different than
Canadian culture. So I really like that. I would say 'isogashi'; busy. Living in Japan
is very busy, if you live in the city anyways.
Now that I've moved out to the countryside, I feel
a little more relaxed. I'm still kind of getting used to this place but living in
Tokyo is crazy man. I don't think I ever want to go back there. It was just
everybody's in a rush.
Everybody's working like until 11pm and it's just really really busy and I just
kind of get that feeling about Japan in general but again, the countryside is a
lot more relaxed so I'm enjoying it.
These are the best two questions ever.
What would you do for morning you woke up and realized you could talk to cats?
And then she followed up with, 'what would be the first thing you ask Maro if
you could speak to cats?'
Umm...Wow, that's so hard...I would probably ask him if he likes his toys and he
likes his food?
Because I'm always like worried that he doesn't actually like them so I always buying him
different things to try.
Like I would just like to get his opinion on things because i am
responsible for everything about him but I don't know if he's enjoying himself or
not so I would just ask him if you like these new scratching post or if you want
something different.
That's what I would do. Favorite k-pop song? Heaven,
by Big Bang. Which japanese actor / actress would you like to work with? Ummm...
Tananobu Asano, obviously.
I'm in love with him. And he's a really freaking amazing actor and it
would just be such an honor to work with him. That would be so cool. I got to meet
his dad on the set of one of the movies I was working on. It was just so surreal, like,
[Whispers in excited voice] 'Oh my god, his dad is behind me right now!'
I wanted to like ask him questions about his son but I don't want to be creepy
so I didn't but yes, Tananobu Asano.
Fun fact: If you didn't know, but he named my hamster. Used to own
a hamster couple years ago I posted a picture of her on Instagram and I ask
people to name her and he commented on it and he suggested Pupu.
and i went with Pupu even though it's an interesting name.
I got used to it eventually but yeah, really cool guy. I guess he just had seen
that i was commenting on his pictures a lot so he came to check out my profile
and he actually took the time to comment and name my hamster so pretty
cool if you ask me.
Were you a vegan before moving to Japan? No I've never been vegan vegetarian.
I went strict pescatarian for like a month.
But I've never followed a strict diet until recently when I decided to go
vegan so... I was raised in a vegetarian household. My parents are both vegetarian,
my sister's vegetarian and it's just the four of us in the house, so I grew up not
eating very much meat except for when i went over to my grandparents' house and
we also didn't drink much milk. We drink lots of soy milk and hemp milk. Like
switching to vegan wasn't hard for me at all.
But yeah I've never followed a strict diet before.
What's your favorite band, singer and etc.? I have two favorites...
yeah. Gojira and Big Bang would be my two favorites.
You're obviously a cat lover—yes I guess it's very obvious—but what's your
relationship with dogs? Just curious. I'm not a dog fan, like I don't dislike
them at all but I don't like them. I don't know why, it's kind of weird cause
like I really like animals in general, but I've just never been a fan of dogs.
My grandma had one when I was growing up and it was nice and all but i don't know.
i just never been a fan.
I guess I like a cat's always like smell nice.
And they're not dirty. I feel like cats are a lot more clean than dogs but I
don't have much experience with dogs so I dunno. Yeah, just meh.
I'm kind of meh about them. My question is what's your favorite breed of cat, do
you like fat cats or skinny cats?
I've never thought about the weight of a cat.
I just trying to keep my cats as healthy as possible so i can't really choose if
I like fat or skinny cats.
I like gray cat, so not like a certain breed. Any kind of gray cat i think is
very awesome, like russian blue or silver tabby like Maro. I just think any, yeah
grey cats are really cool.
Do you think you could survive a zombie apocalypse?
I feel like I've watched enough zombie movies that I know how to not die and
maybe how to escape from the zombies but I'm not really sure but I feel like I've
got quite a good amount of zombie knowledge in my brain, thanks to all
those movies so i'm going to say there's a good chance. This question is really funny.
I don't know if you want me to read it in English or not but either way I'm
gonna have to put subtitles. So he said would you rather date Asian guys or
other guys? Other than Asian, I guess.
And here in brackets he's like I wanted to ask you in English but
I thought that my American friends would be like, 'what the hell is that question?'
so I asked you in Japanese.
Urm... I like black hair and dark eyes so that usually translates to me liking
Asian guys more but... again I like dark hair and dark eyes so they don't have to
be Asian and I've dated people that have blonde hair and light eyes.
So... I don't really have like a type that I always stick with but often
I'm attracted to black hair. I think black is freaking awesome.
Oh and I dyed my hair recently and I got them redo it black at the top because I
love black hair but I don't feel like it would suit me so I decided to go like
black to
platinum blonde. It's coming out kind of yellow on the camera results actually
like a really nice light ashy blonde. I love it.
Black hair for the win. I think it's awesome. Favorite book? 1984.
What's your favorite fruit? I don't know.
It's used to be mango but I don't know what it is anymore.
Oh they have this one type of grapes in Japan that are really good.
Uh Kyoho they're called. I'll put a picture of them here.
They're very very large and they're delicious.
So if you ever come to Japan try these grapes. When did you first get introduced
to Pokemon and what part of it made you interested in it?
I honestly cannot remember the day that I first discovered Pokemon. I know that i
was in...man, it must have been either late elementary school or really really early
like high school... But anyways the part that I like the most about it was collecting
cards because we had a flea market near my house and I would go there and i
would buy a couple cards every week and it was just the most exciting thing ever
and I remember the day they got a shiny Charizard and I just thought i was the
coolest person in the world but I love collecting stuff so yeah the whole like
collectible card aspect about it was my favorite part. What sort of reaction you
get when you tell people in Japan you're vegan? I've heard it's very unusual in
Japan.
I've only been vegan for like two months I haven't really had to tell very many
people in general. They're like confused and curious, I guess I would say? Because
I guess the majority of people don't know what that means. They'll ask me
questions like. "oh, can you still eat fish?"
"Can you still eat chicken?" So I just feel like they're curious because they don't
really understand what it means. That would be the general reaction I get from people.
Would you ever think of living in a place that wasn't Japan?
Yeah there's a million places i would like to live. The only reason I don't is
because picking up your whole life and going somewhere and starting again is
very expensive and time-consuming, so it's not really doable.
Or else i would totally live in like as many countries as possible
cause I think it's really fun and it's just really
amazing experience to be able to experience a completely different
culture. So if i could live in another country?
Um where would I want to try living?
It's a good question i think i would wanna try living in the Netherlands for
a bit just because some of my family's from there. So I kind of want to
experience and see what it's like
And I would also like to live in Korea beccause I really want to learn Korea and I feel like
it's never going to happen unless I like a force myself into like a Korean-
speaking environment.
i would also like to live in some place like Norway or Sweden. I think that would be neat too.
Any advice for teens who are currently struggling with bullying and
any ways that they can cope with the hate? I know that it's really difficult
and I don't know if there's much that I can say to like help you in the moment.
There's not much you can do other than report it to your counselor or principal.
I ended up having to do that in high school and the outcome was that I
changed high schools and i really like the high school I was transferred to so
that's always an option. If you really just dislike the situation that you're in
high school and if you have complained about the bullying and it's not stopping
or if you feel uncomfortable like complaining about the bullying you can
look into transferring high schools. But if that's not an option for you which is
probably the case for most people, just try to remember that once you can get
through high school it's going to be so much better. So try to just push through
it and ignore them to the best of your abilities even though I know it's really
difficult. Try and find some really good friends and just focus on those people
and hang out with those people and try to avoid the jerks as much as possible.
That's really all I can tell you but trust me it will get better. So don't be
too upset about your situation right now, because just a few more years, hang in
there and that you'll be enjoying life a lot more, I think afterwards.
Choose Maro or Pokemon? Obviously Maro. What kind of question is that?
If anybody would choose pokemon over their pet they shouldn't
have a pet. That's horrible.
I would choose Maro over most human, let alone Pokemon.
All right I'm gonna stop there. Hopefully I answered lots of questions. I know
there are some that I missed so
I apologize but I don't want this video to be like an hour long.
Thanks for watching guys and again if you would like to participate in the
next Q&A, please follow me on Twitter at Sharla in Japan and I will see you guys soon. Bye!