I'm an American and I'm paranoid too!

Well I am back. Back from vacation. Back from the States, back to China. I have moved. I am now living and working in Peizheng College. Peizheng is a stones throw from Chini which is a short drive to Huadu which is a hike to Guangzhou. However no one knows where this place is so I just say I am in Guangzhou. Or if people really do not know I say I am near Hong Kong. That usually works. I am out in the middle of no where, in the jungle far from civilization, rooming with 80 some odd foreign teachers here to teach oral English to the students. I just returned to China four days ago and have been settling in to my apartment trying to make the limited space comfortable. In the meantime I have also been taking in some of the local color. In this case it is all the Americans who have come to China to teach. Out of the 80 or so foreign teachers, roughly around forty or so are American. Out of those a good seventy five percent are male. These guys run the gambit of young and inexperienced to late fifties, sixties, with a wealth of life experience. Some speak Chinese very well the rest just well... not. What some of them do have in common is this intense desire never to return to the States. Everyone has their own reasons. Some of which result from the fear of being watched. Americans love conspiracies. We spend hours, days,years, fixated on our desire to prove the government is behind it all. We love it so much no matter where we go we import this fear of the man in heavy doses. We will tell anyone and everyone willing to be within earshot. Ah the paranoia. I think it's the beer we drink. There is something in those micro brews that makes us so crazy. So we are sitting around a table at one of the smallish restaurants just across the street from the campus and I am listening to everyone talk about their adventures around China and abroad and one of the teachers pipes up and exclaims, they will find you if they want you. They being our government and their ability to ferret out anyone on the planet if they so desire. They have their ways!!! I know I worked in a bank and every time you use a credit card they know where you are! OK I am thinking maybe there is a way to disappear so they can't find you. Well we talked about everything from satellites with powerful telescopes to the computer chip in your passport. I argued that maybe there is a way to "get off the grid". Well that's just not possible, he says. No matter where you are or what you are doing they will find you. They will find you!! The funny part to all this is he doesn't seem to mind that the Chinese Government knows our every whereabouts no matter where we are in China. Oh the hysteria!! Be afraid! It is like a mantra that I was feeling weary of. I love conspiracies I am the first to say that there was more to Dallas than they let you to believe, 9-11 was way too easy for a bunch of foreigners to execute it on their own, you know, the usual stuff. This though bugged me. Who cares whether they can find me or not. The guy is living in a Kafka novel. The bottom line to all this is so what, who cares. Life is way too short to worry about such things. Oops, someone is knocking ....got to run...