You know that oft-quoted chestnut about Chinese eating everything with legs except the table and everything that flies except for airplanes? Well, it never did seem that crazy to me. I can relate to it more than that other cliché you’ve heard (though I’ve heard it in several variations), the one about a man being in heaven with a British salary, American house, Japanese wife and Chinese cook.
Now, I was in Guangzhou – which, if you pick up any guide to China or an older atlas, used to be known as Canton, and Cantonese is oft touted as the best food in all of China and all that. Remember how, just over a year ago, I was flummoxed by the chinglish menus in Beijing, Eli’s ulcer was acting up because everything we managed to order was too spicy, and the jokes about the dump-lings were flying? (Now that was an exercise in dventurous eating, since we had little idea what anything meant and had no mandarin speaker with us. I remember how, after we’d dropped Rick off in the domestic terminal, Eli and I found each other again after we had checked in for exit customs, cleared security and all those formalities, and he had this big-ass grin because he was now in the part of the terminal where he could order food and know what it was, and we celebrated by drinking two very overpriced cappuccinos. I also remember that, some months after I got home, I came across my Beijing guidebook again, and noticed this whole section in the back that had a list of dishes – in English, Pinyin and Chinese characters - that don’t always appear on the menu but that any restaurant in Beijing will make for you, and so many of them were things we would have appreciated. Oops!)
So, yeah. My previous experience with eating in China made me somewhat nervous. It’s not that I’m that much of a weenie when it comes to food, but, well, there are a lot of things with legs or things that fly which I just don’t want to eat. 
And even the critters that I, generally, not balk about consuming – well, there’s the matter of which part of the critter… As far as I saw it, our biggest challenge in Beijing was that we had no idea what anything on the menu meant. Which is why, when I came downstairs on my first morning in Guangzhou to look for the coffee I’d been promised was in the kitchen, I was really quite thrilled to see this poster. See how common fruits and some vegetables are illustrated here, in English, Pinyin and Chinese characters? And how, after the fact, I’d thought that was such a great idea when I came across it in the Beijing guidebook. This made total sense. I reasoned, memorize this, and I’m golden (I did not memorize it. I took a picture of it.)
It made pretty good sense, really. See how the illustrated foods match the ones I saw on the streets of Guangzhou while wandering around? Genius. And yes, I know the cauliflower is labeled broccoli. The broccoli was labeled green flowered vegetable, but that’s close enough. The thing is, I can confidently say that there is nothing on this poster that I would have any difficulty eating, and with the exception of the turnip (labeled radish) 
perhaps, I would enjoy all of these. So these aren’t really the characters I need to memorize and watch out for…
Fortunately for me, there was a matching critter poster on the other side of the kitchen. And now we’re getting into territory of avoidance, for sure. And I know what you’re thinking, that this is probably a poster for children to learn English (or, I guess, Chinese), and it’s just like those ubiquitous childrens books that illustrate all sorts of words (I have a one year old nephew, I have seen these books a lot!). And you know what I say to that? 
Ha frickin ha. Because folks, I wandered around a few wet markets. And I can make plenty of argument that this is a poster of things I might encounter in the food markets, most of these things after all having legs and not being tables. I shall start to illustrate conservatively, with the humble chicken (for some reason only illustrated in its cute, downy chick stage). We can remove ourselves from things a European or North American would eat in the normal course of the day very quickly.
And you know what else? This poster is nowhere near exhaustive enough. There are plenty of edible critters that are not on the poster. I give you, for instance, scorpions. Note how this tub is not closed in any way (also note how the caiman was just hanging out on the floor? This was very near the scorpions. And that picture was taken one morning when Rick took a break to go for a walk with me, and we were in a conversation walking through this market when that caiman lunged at me with its taped shut jaws. I jumped! I think I jumped on Rick’s foot. But what if I’d jumped and knocked over a tub of scorpions? I’m just asking, what if!)
I’ll give you, though, that there are plenty of things that don’t freak me out. You know, things like rice and tofu (I like tofu and its analogues, probably much more than meat – in any context – and I particularly liked the hot soymilk we bought) and of course all the fruits and vegetables (except durian. I don’t need durian), and I quite liked the tea shops too.
I’ll also confess that I was spared any of those hmmmm, which critter might this be eating moments the entire time in Guangzhou. This is because most meals were eating in the company of fluent Chinese speakers, and Diana was really very good about my “I don’t want turtle or toad or dog or cat or any other animal that doesn’t quack or cheep or moo or oink or is a fish!” weenie proclamations. So I ate things like lotus root and tofu and (they claimed) chicken and of course “meat” and I didn’t ask too many questions. We went to many different restaurants in the few days I was in Guangzhou, and all of them were identified by the regional specialty they were aligned with. 
Now, that didn’t do me much good, so far I can perhaps locate five Chinese provinces on the map – and I don’t have a sense of the food in any of them! But I was along for the ride, and the ride was mostly tasty. However, for me, a Thai cook would still beat a Chinese cook. Seriously.