Everyone at the table has stopped eating. The Chinese dinner guests are staring at me with expressions ranging from abject horror to sheer disbelief.

I'm in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu on business, we are sharing a meal in a hotpot restaurant, and I've just casually mentioned that in Australia we eat kangaroo.

"But they're so cute," a mortified local says as she pops a bit of stomach lining into her mouth. "How can you eat something that is so cute?"