Do You Realize??

By Zachary Mayer-Bickel ‘21, JFOU Fellow 2022-2024

When I arrived in Tokyo more than two years ago, I came with a lot of confidence and a lot of worry. On the one hand I was ready for almost anything living abroad in Japan could throw at me. By that time, I’d already lived in central Tokyo, traveled the country several times, and studied abroad in Kyoto. I'd already been sent home early from that study abroad due to the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. I had been through culture shock, learned to communicate, and navigated disasters.

My favorite dog at the sweet potato specialty shop a block from the apartment. 1/30/25

Conversely, the prospect of standing in front of a class of thirty students for three and a half hours at a time was overwhelmingly terrifying. I was ripped from my comfortable routine working at a bookstore and shunted across the world to a foreign country where I knew less than five people. I only agreed to going at all after my best friend and Oberlin alum Will Lynch ‘21 told me point blank “Zack, you have to go.” Even after that it took some encouragement and assurances from my mom as well before I signed anything.

Skiing at Nozawa Onsen, Nagano 12/24/24

Snow Monkeys in Nagano 12/26/24

So off I went. Unsurprisingly, I have had a lovely time teaching English at J.F Oberlin. It's often fun and rewarding job. While it takes time and effort, it isn’t half as hard as I was expecting it would be. I still spend almost as much time with my friends as I used to thanks to the internet. We still play out epic struggles and great drama through tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons at least twice a week. Plus, I have two wonderful co-fellows to explore Tokyo with. What has proven to be easy and fun for a JFO Shansi fellow is not what I was expecting. But the same is true for what has been hard.

Alex and Zack getting pizza at Pizza Restaurant Oh! God 1/29/24

Indian food in Fuchinobe with Alex and Risa 1/27/25

I didn’t expect my time in Japan to feel so detached from my life in the United States. Part of that is because I’m 5,800 miles from home on another continent in a country where I can’t speak the language fluently. But that’s the part I’ve done before. Studying abroad in Kyoto or doing my exchange program never made me feel so far from home. Part of it comes from the fact that I have a wonderful life here filled with friendship and adventure. It's easy to be distracted by hiking up mountains or trips to Kyushu. But the distance most profoundly stems not from my being in Japan, but rather my not being in America. A lot has changed while I’ve been away.

Risa at Todaiji in Nara 11/23/24

Risa-zilla about to completely level our thanksgiving dinner at her parents house in Meguro, Tokyo 11/29/24

For one, my grandparents moved out of the house that my father (OC ‘86) grew up in. It's a ten-minute walk from my own childhood home and I spent countless hours there as a kid and adult. It’s surreal to sit in my apartment in Machida, 5,800 miles away and think about all things I'll never do again. I'll never sit at their kitchen table eating Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese and Stoned Wheat Thins crackers while Grandma (OC ‘61) and Opa (OC ‘59) ask me how my day at elementary school was again. I’ll never sit at that same table eating those same crackers and cheese and tell them about how my semester at Oberlin went again. I will never look up from the chess game Opa and I play (badly) at the dining room table, a few feet from the kitchen table, and see my little black dog and my grandparents’ big fluffy white cat sitting in the yard together. I’ll never see my dog again.

Muki the cat in Sara Mayer OC' 61 and Tom Mayer OC' 59's backyard. 

I go home to a family that will never be quite the same as it was when I left. My uncle Steve Bickle (OC’ 90) tragically passed in November of 2023. Before I left for Japan, we went on bike rides or cooked dinner together almost weekly. I miss him. What’s more is the distance has dulled or more likely delayed the impact these events have had on me personally. It's not just that it's happening far away, it's that it feels as though it's happening far away. I miss him a lot less than the rest of my family. My family is still my family and in so many ways things haven’t changed. But it isn’t the same. I left Japan prepared for lots of changes in my immediate life and surroundings. I wasn’t prepared to be unable to go back to what I left behind.

Ella the dog and I on a hike in the Colorado Rockies, 2022

Steve Bickel OC'90

When I ponder this unexpected but admittedly obvious revelation, I’m often reminded of the Flaming Lips song “Do You Realize??” where Wayne Coyne sings “Let them know you realize that life goes fast, it’s hard to make the good things last.” Listening to it before, I always thought I did understand the message. Intellectually, I certainly comprehended it. But only now, after experiencing it for myself do I truly realize that life goes fast. It’s not just hard but impossible to make the good things last. But I’ve also come to learn that life going fast just means you have to make it count while you can. I can’t make anything last but trying is still worth it.

Alex and Zack skiing at Nozawa Onsen on christmas 12/25/24

Fall leaves at Nanzenji temple in Kyoto 11/24/24

I’ve had incredible adventures in Japan that have taken me from the sweltering edge of a volcano in Kyushu to the snowy ski slopes of Nagano. I’ve hiked mountains and rafted rivers. I’ve gone sightseeing in Kyoto four or more times in less than two years and I’m going back in April. But I’ve also spent a lot of time relaxing at home playing guitar, calling friends, or watching my favorite prestige tv era HBO shows with my co-fellows. I understand more clearly than when I left that these moments spent with the people I love and often by myself are what make me happy. I have six more months in Japan. It will all be over before I realize it. But I’m going to make the most of it anyway.

Skiing at Nozawa Onsen, Nagano 12/24/24

A crazy low lying cloud at Nozawa Onsen 12/24/24

Come August, I’ll get on a plane and fly back to Colorado. I’m looking forward to visiting my grandparents and their cat. They only live a half hour bike ride away from my parent’s house. We will play chess, and they’ll tell me about their recent political activism. We will lament the current state of the country. I can even take a walk by the old house across from my elementary school if I feel the urge. After a few weeks I’ll leave Boulder again to start the next chapter in my life.