Asked to describe herself in a few words, Francine Martin replies: "Long-term expat." The American has been away from home for 35 years - 10 years in France, where she grew up, and 25 years in Asia.

Since 1996, Martin has been splitting her time between Shanghai and Hong Kong, and for the past three years she has been running a personal shopping service in Shanghai - helping visitors find gems in a city that is a shopper's paradise.

Whether it's souvenirs with Chinese characteristics, pearls and semi-precious stones, custom-tailored clothes and slippers, real or fake antiques, she can help you find it.

Martin will take you down the side streets behind the malls, pick out the right boutique from the hundreds available, brave the markets of hawking vendors, and refer you to art or antique specialists. She will even throw in excursions down old lanes for a slice of Shanghai life, or some gallery or museum suggestions, finished off with directions to a good restaurant.

With fluent Mandarin and an encyclopedic knowledge of the myriad things on offer, Martin specializes in bespoke itineraries.

"Shanghai is really good for silk-bound articles, like notebooks, frames and gifts," she says. "Here silk bedding is a great buy. It's also a good place for pearls, and what I call 'baubles' which are antiques, small statues, jewelry and terracotta pieces."

One thing Shanghai is not so good for is ready-made clothes in Western sizes, Martin says, though you can get around this with cheap tailored clothes and shoes.

"Shanghai is also great for just walking around and discovering sights," says Martin, a fan of the historic architecture here and likes to include cultural excursions in her shopping trips.

Arranging a shopping trip with her involves several steps. In an initial consultation she finds out your particular needs, then she plans the trip and visits the vendors beforehand to check merchandise, then you are accompanied on the actual trip where Martin helps with bargaining and spotting the real deals from the not so real.

Clients have often asked for weird and wonderful things, everything from replacement parts for antique bird cages, to an industrial-sized fan. But Martin is happy to oblige as it's a fun challenge for her, too.

It's mostly tourists who need her services, because of their limited time and difficulty in the language.

"I help them maximize their outing, so they don't have to worry about where to go and how to get there," she says. "They can be more relaxed, enjoy the experience and notice things that maybe they haven't before, like the old architecture here which is just incredible."

Martin also has some VIP clients. Although she declines to name them, she slips that "sometimes the wealthier the client, the more intent they are on bargains and knock-offs."

The services are highly personalized because the business started off as a hobby. With many years spent moving between Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Shanghai, Martin was used to having a lot of friends to stay.

"I wanted to give them not just a tour of the city but also something unique, an adventure that brings the city alive for them," she says. Unsurprisingly in Shanghai this involved a lot of shopping, and eventually she realized it could expand to a business.

Martin first came to Asia in 1976, accompanying her husband to Taiwan where he studied Chinese. For most of the 1980s the couple lived in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, before coming to settle in Shanghai. Her previous career was very different from that of a glamorous, girly personal shopper.

For 25 years she was financial editor for securities houses. Yet she says many of the skills required were the same in both jobs, such as the attention to detail and careful planning.

"The difference is now I get to meet lots more people, compared with a very solitary job before. I'm catching up from all the years of being isolated at a computer," she says.

In a fast-moving city such as Shanghai, it takes hard work to keep up to date on the best shopping spots. She spends a lot of time going back to areas such as Changle and Julu roads to revisit boutiques, see how things have changed and which shops have closed or newly opened.

She records it all in a massive card file. Over time and through repetition Martin has also built up a relationship with vendors who help her find obscure items and give special treatment to her clients.

Recently, she say, 20 to 30 new shops had opened along Taikang Road though not all of good quality. She's also excited about a new art gallery on Yueyang Road, and there are some new home decoration stores north of Beijing Road.

Being such a "long-term expat" has both advantages and disadvantages. When asked if she is ever homesick, Martin thinks carefully before she says: "No, because I don't have strong roots. As an expat, you meet new people and have new experiences, but the price of that is losing solid roots."

With both her children grown up and working or studying in Canada, Martin is set to stay in Shanghai.

Comparing Shanghai with other Asian cities, she finds there is an "exoticism" to the city.

"The energy here is palpable, and it offers an unusual way to see how foreigners used to live. In this combination of old and new, Shanghai is exotic," she concludes. "It's different from Hong Kong where it's very glitzy and superficial. There's a sense of history here."

 Martin's shopping tipsWestern-sized clothes

Many smaller boutiques can do bespoke sizes. It never hurts to ask. At tailors' markets, you need to find a stall you trust because many stalls farm their orders out to different tailors and quality can't be guaranteed. Why waste time and effort for just a 50-percent success rate?

Antiques

In Shanghai there aren't a lot of reliable antiques where the whole piece is antique and not made from bits and pieces. Again you need reliable vendors.

But if you like an item and can accept the chance that it's fake, and can accept the price, then I say just buy it and don't worry too much.

Bargaining

If you're in a market where they sell lots of the same thing, walk around and see how the starting price varies. They're all inflated but some more so than others.

When bargaining it's good to smile and keep a sense of humor, in a way it's a game. Remember to give face to yourself and the shopkeeper, and not be too absurd with your offers.

(Shanghai Daily August 25, 2008)