What the Chinese don't eat : the collected Guardian columns / Xinran.

Chinese whispers -- Where the son shines -- In the west, a kiss is just a kiss -- Is there any female on earth who could meet the five male requirements of a good woman? -- In a four-star hotel in China, one woman's cup of tea is another woman's daily wages -- 'Do the foreigners who adopt our girls know how to feed and love them in their arms and hearts?' -- In China, god is god -- Now women in China know what they have been missing, the pain is too hard to bear -- Traditions may be dying out but forcing children to wash their parents' feet won't help -- The Chinese are still obsessed with saving face -- Chinese honesty means telling the bald truth -- If it flies, if it swims, or if it has four legs but is not a table or chair, the Chinese eat it -- New year's eve in Shanghai -- Shanghai has a new skyline but why does the woman who used to clean my ears have a new face? -- Chinese new year has suddenly made me doubt how well I know my own culture -- As the sea rose, the cocklers rang their families in China -- I may be Chinese but my knowledge is still just a spoonful of tea in the ocean that is China -- What use is freedom and democracy to the poor if you can't sell it by the kilogram?

The story of the Red Guards, the forgetful ferryman, and the cat that reunited a family -- They move millions to a new town, replant entire mountains - the Chinese are amazing -- Twenty years after I first heard of it, I found myself scouring a Chinese street for a HongDu-Dou -- The ghosts of Qing-Zang -- A late-night knock at the door - is it the return of the Cultural Revolution? -- If it says 'made in China' on the label, most Chinese just don't want to know -- Chinese girls adopted by westerners highlight a vast cultural divide that must be bridged -- A couple of unforgettable chickens reinforced my faith in human kindness -- A shocking tale in a New Zealand bookshop is a lesson that hate is an emotion best forgotten -- The young do not understand the madness and pain of the Cultural Revolution --My friends in China ask me to look out for their visiting children - but I have to draw the line somewhere --Eat them, catch them, or look at them in an aquarium. But what fish are really best for is explaining life -- I used to think there were no good Chinese men, until a brief encounter at Paddington station -- Adjusting to life in London means roast pork, girls in smelly clothes and automated phone operators -- How China has embraced all the bright lights and overindulgence of a very merry craze mass -- In 1976 an earthquake in China caused double the death toll of the tsunami

Receiving a handwritten card in this age of computers is one of the great pleasures in life -- Victorious Egg Festival, Sexual Hooligans' Day? -- The west ruined our self-confidence years ago -- The gap between western and Chinese paintings is as vast as that between the two cultures -- How to bridge the gulf between Chinese and western painting -- When Chinese art meets western culture, an inner world is revealed -- China is my homeland : but these days I am lost in translation -- There are still students in China who believe babies come out of their mothers' tummy buttons -- The chatroom gives Chinese women a chance to be open and express their true thoughts -- Socks are a status symbol - does that mean barelegged westerners are all peasants? -- There is no point worrying about feeling down -- English schoolchildren have shown me that China has much to learn about the joy of education -- Ears, lips, fingers, toes : Chinese men used to check them all in the search for the perfect wife -- The English break the ice by talking about weather, but the Chinese choose food -- Why do old men, who need sticks to walk, open doors for healthy middle-aged women? -- Even now, many Chinese find it impossible to see Mao as anything but a smiling presence -- My mothers' heart attack has shattered our dreams of finally getting to know each other.