Irreverent eye

Chinese sayings Denman pairs with her art: "... never change"－Confucius. [Photo by Wang Zhuangfei/China Daily]

In the book, Denman presents herself as borderline forlorn upon arrival in China as a proverbial trailing spouse. "Overnight I felt as if the word 'appendage' had been tattooed on my forehead. Anyone who has seen Lost in Translation will recognize that emptiness of being alone in a foreign country when your husband or wife goes off for their first day at work. It always takes a few months of marking territory and renegotiating borders before the status quo is re-established. Even so, after 25 years the feeling of trotting behind your husband on a lead never quite goes away."

The next weekend at a Christmas bazaar, however, it's Cherry who's out front at a booth crammed with artwork, books, holiday cards and aprons emblazoned "Old Dragon" across the chest, while Charlie stands in the background with a smile, ready to lend a helping hand.

In fact, once the initial strangeness of Beijing eases and the first bout of homesickness is fended off, the young Cherry's native self-confidence reasserted itself. Whether addressing a fire dispatcher as a "supercilious cow" or her own doubts about where her masseur's hands might be going, the author plows through her tale of expat life while raising two children with fearless good humor.

Meanwhile, she's stayed busy as a professional illustrator. Her books include a collaboration with Chinese writer Hong Ying on a bilingual children's book, The Girl From the French Fort. Denman also included many drawings within Diplomatic Incidents, from the arrival of her children's nanny "wearing nothing but high heels, a very short skirt and a black, lacy bra" to her "home-help from hell" cook - sketched with a witch's hat and grasping a pop-eyed frog by the throat.

"But I charge double if someone asks me to draw a cat," says the author of Way of Dog with a grin of delicious malice.

"I hate them."