"Hey guys! It's Chika!" -- This is how Chika Yoshida begins her YouTube videos introducing useful phrases in English and information about English-speaking countries and elsewhere. She's very popular for her cheerful, friendly personality, in addition to the easy-to-understand content. Her main YouTube channel, "Bilingirl Chika," boasts more than 1.5 million subscribers.
Yoshida started posting videos on YouTube in June 2011, well before the term YouTuber became widely known. She was working for a consulting company at the time and just wanted to show the videos to her friends. In her first video, Yoshida explained when to use the definite and indefinite articles. It was a simple video clip she recorded before going to work in the morning and edited after coming home.
Born in 1984 in Nagasaki Prefecture, Yoshida moved to the United States when she was in the first grade for her father's work and lived there until she graduated from the University of Washington. After returning to Japan in 2007 and starting to work, she began writing a blog and on social media about her thoughts on the differences between Japan and the United States in terms of culture and how people work.
"I was happy to see my friends' responses to my posts and discovered the joy of having a voice and being able to share that with an audience," Yoshida said.
For Yoshida, the videos were meant as an extension of her blog and social media posts. One day, however, she found she had 356 subscribers to her channel and thought, "But I don't have that many friends ..." This was the moment she realized that people other than those around her were watching her videos.
Yoshida began trying to make her videos more entertaining and portrayed various characters like a cosplayer and a rapper in her clips. The number of subscribers kept growing.
Turning point
A turning point came when she received an offer from NHK to appear on a TV show for a report on her activities as an online video creator. The show aired on March 14, 2014, on NHK Educational TV.
"It convinced me that my channel was recognized as having a value of its own," she said.
Sometime after the show aired, Yoshida quit her job to focus on making videos. She also appeared in a YouTube commercial produced and streamed later that year, which raised her profile even higher. The commercial series also featured Hikakin, a leading YouTuber in Japan.
Yoshida had 156,714 subscribers at the time. She closely watched videos by YouTubers overseas to study how to create pleasantly fast-paced, cool clips. Even now, she continues to strive and come up with new ideas, such as changing the nature of the videos depending on whether they're targeted at viewers new to her work or those who have been watching her videos from before.
She sometimes makes videos about her major life events, including her wedding and the birth of her child. She even filmed herself inside a car while hurrying to the hospital as the gap between her contractions got shorter and shorter. She also reports on day-to-day events from her private life, such as family trips and skin care, introducing English words suitable for those situations.
Some YouTubers let others edit their videos to improve their quality or increase the number of videos they put up. Yoshida has always edited her videos by herself.
"I definitely prefer editing to filming," she said. "I think I've been able to continue because of my love for editing."
Becoming a YouTuber made one of her dreams come true: meeting the Backstreet Boys. She has been a big fan of the U.S. vocal group and used to put their posters on the walls and the ceiling of her bedroom when she was in high school. She looks really happy in the video she made about interviewing the group.
She has also met Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise and Will Smith, who both appeared in her videos.
"A good thing about speaking in English is that you can chat frankly even with celebrities," Yoshida said. However, she added that, as a professional, she can't just enjoy meeting such people for mere pleasure, because as great as it may seem, it is a job and she has to focus on asking the right questions and creating entertaining content for her viewers.
Yoshida often receives messages from her fans saying such things as "I've begun studying overseas," and "I've started learning English conversation."
"I'm glad that my videos have become a springboard for someone to start something new," she said with a beaming smile.
Looking for home
She calls her subscribers "Chika-tomo" (Chika's friends). As of Jan. 23, the number of subscribers had reached 1.57 million.
"My relationship with my viewers [Chika-tomos] won't change no matter how large my following may become. The intimacy that I have with them is extremely important to me and I hope to continue sharing my videos with them as I would do with my friends," she said.
When Yoshida was pregnant, she hit on the idea of moving overseas because she wanted to provide her child with an environment in which she could grow up freely.
As Yoshida began looking for a good place to live, she and her husband, whose job titles include YouTube video producer, realized that they can work without being bound to one place.
"So we decided to live in various countries for a few months at a time, to find a place that felt right for us," Yoshida said.
After giving birth to her daughter, she lived in Melbourne for about three months from February last year. Yoshida observed nurseries, swimming schools and baby product stores there, while also doing such things as going to a hair salon, visiting an IT company and interviewing a Japanese barista working in the city. She reported on those activities in her videos.
After returning to Japan, she published a book about her experience in Australia: "Wake Up! in Melbourne" from Sekaibunka Publishing Inc.
"After living there, I found that there was so much more to be discovered and absorbed," she said.
Since late November, Yoshida and her family have been living in Kuala Lumpur, their second destination of the short-term relocation series. She's reported on her life in the Malaysian capital, from her arrival in the city to visits to the nursery her 1-year-old daughter attends, to tourist spots as well as Malaysian food, culture and fashion.
"If my daughter doen't get too sick of moving all the time, we'd like to continue living nomad style until she has to start going to elementary school," she said.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
