Do Chinese eat rats?

Yesterday, I caught up with some friends. As they finished eating, a good friend started talking about rats. She was in a fire warden training while a giant rat ran into the room sending the girls screaming. It turned out to be a member of the 300-strong rat clan recently unearthed from a home-run Greek cafe across the road to the Macquarie bank and ASX . [I bet it was as fat as the greedy bankers over there.] With the rats in diaspora, the wall-street of Sydney is thrown into random chaos. As I enjoyed the rat episode [and secretly cheering that I had nothing to throw up from my empty stomach] and her highly embarrassing childhood encounter with a mouse which left her permanent psychiatric imprint, she suddenly started talking about photos being circulated online showing Chinese preparing rat meat disguised as chicken. "I'll email you the photos." Everyone else maintained a polite silence aware that I am Chinese. And I was the only Chinese at the table, thus feeling obliged to say something. I said lamely "Obviously rat meat comes at no cost."Nobody responded and the topic just passed onto tackling roaches much to my relief.

I should have said this.

Do Chinese eat rats?
- No it's NOT a popular practice in Guangdong, let alone the whole of China [hey, we are talking about a country bigger than Australia]
- No it's definitely not on the household menu [reasonably except perhaps when there's a big famine?].
-No my family and all the Chinese people I know of (imagine how many) are as disgusted at the thought of it just as I am.
-No, please there's enough xenophobia and intorlerance already in this world. We don't need more.

I couldn't have said any of the above without sounding disgruntled, defensive and killing our mood of our friendly, amicable small chats. But compared with the falsehood and generalization of the impression that the email circulation might leave, the "NOs" above are absolutely honest and specific.

I was waiting for the photos that she would email to us and perhaps reply with the big No-No. But I wouldn't be surprised that I'm carefully nipped out of the cc-list.