“In my generation, there’s a lot of desperation to be different, to be an individual,” she told me, as we squeezed past stalls, each one indistinguishable from the next, each crammed with rolls of silk, linen, cotton, wool, leather, or fur. We came to her favorite stall, No. 237, where a tailor makes clothes for her based on sketches she does on the spot. She said, “Because we were only children, we grew up the center of attention in our families and now we want the attention of society. I think that’s why handmade, one-of-a-kind, standout clothes are so popular now.” On Mai’s recommendation, I chose two men’s shirting fabrics—a blue-and-white striped oxford and a Mao-red broadcloth—and had my measurements taken. The tailor whipped up a snappy little dress to Mai’s specifications and delivered it to my hotel three days later. I wore it to an appointment with Francine Martin, an American who leads shopping tours of Shanghai, to sites recondite and renowned (www.eastofthesun-asia.com). “Thirty-three dollars?” she said. “Very nice, but one should never pay more than twenty dollars for a simple custom-made dress.” (Stall 237 also makes men’s shirts of Egyptian cotton for $15, but Martin probably knows where they can be had for $10.)

You don’t have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country? Faux Scandinavia has Nobel Science and Technology Park. Thames Town has Tudor houses, cobblestoned streets, and a statue of Churchill. Plans for a Canadian Maple Town had palm trees and a bridge with Roman columns. Hmm.

Who’s to say that the replica isn’t better than the original? Such was the case with the brown quilted leather jacket lined in chartreuse silk that I’d bought on sale years ago at the Madison Avenue branch of Shanghai Tang, a Chinese company based in Hong Kong (600 Madison Avenue). In less than a week, the copycat in Stall 319 at the South Bund Soft-Spinning Material Market had produced an identical version for me in black quilted leather with puce lining (approximately $200; a similar coat at Shanghai Tang today, $1,490).

Jessica Chen, a sage in her twenties who owns a Shanghai cashmere label, told me, “In Los Angeles, they have real Birkin bags and fake boobs. In Shanghai, it’s the other way around.” If you ask a hotel concierge, you’ll be told the address of a lane house on South Shanxi Road, purveyors of the finest in fraudulence. There, according to the staff, N.B.A. players, including Yao Ming, shop for knockoff leather goods, and Celine Dion recently bought fifty handbags. George Washington probably slept there, too. This establishment is so hush-hush that a uniformed guard is stationed nearby to keep a lookout for the police, and it is so up to date that when a customer asked whether the shop carried a certain Gucci hobo bag she was dismissively informed that the article was last year’s model ($58 for belts and wallets; $435 for a blue-sheared mink jacket).

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Not everyone is selling fakes. In “cabbage shops” all over town (so called because the merchandise “fell off a truck”), you can get bargains on factory rejects and overruns. Of course, you can also get skirts with zippers that are as reliable as the F train. A pleasant boutique called Quan seems to have an impressive share of the former (733 Julu Road).

Shanghai is the largest city in China, and I think I may have interviewed all 18.15 million residents to find out how their city stacks up against the capital, Beijing (pop. 17 million).

Some of the responses: “Women in Shanghai are flashier, more dolled up.” “Beijing looks down on Shanghai for wanting only money.” “In Shanghai, they say, ‘I’ll find it cheaper,’ whereas in Beijing it’s ‘I want it in every color.’ ” “There are more foreigners here. We have an Italian restaurant next to a Moroccan restaurant.” “A Shanghaier would rather buy a new pair of shoes than a ticket to the ballet.” “Beijing style is edgier, more avant-garde.” “Beijing’s short and wide. Shanghai’s tall and compact.” “Shanghai is more refined. More attention to detail.” “Shanghai’s female, Beijing’s male.” “Shanghai is New York. Beijing is Washington, D.C.” “Shanghai is New York. Beijing is L.A.” “Shanghai is Tel Aviv. Beijing is Jerusalem.” “Beijing is China. Shanghai is Shanghai.”

Until twenty-five years ago, it was practically unheard of for citizens to own property in China. By 2007, however, The Economist reported that eighty per cent of the urban population had become homeowners. So a lot of nesters suddenly have a need for a lot of dining-room sets and salad tongs and scented candles. Yes, there is an IKEA, and it is wildly popular (585 Longhua Xi Road). “But they don’t have silver furniture,” I was told by Yue-Sai Kan, whose home-decorating mini department store, House of Yue-Sai, opened late last year. Kan has been called the Martha Stewart/Oprah/Emily Post/Estée Lauder of China. Perhaps you know Kan’s cosmetics line? Or “One World,” her weekly television show, which was seen by an estimated three hundred million people? When I visited the House of Yue-Sai, there was a wide range of ornate pillows from India and China, a stunning Modigliani-esque painting of the back of a Chinese woman’s head by the French painter Christian de Laubadère, and a fanciful orange-and-black parasol (15-19 West Beijing Road; $72, $7,246, $84).

At Jane’s Home—actually Stall 130 in another fabric bazaar, the ShiLiuPu Cloth Market (surely you don’t think there’s just one of anything in Shanghai)—Jane is nowhere in sight, but Kelly is there to remind you how much more the same merchandise would cost down the block at Shanghai Tang. Any knickknack knockoff that can possibly be sewn out of silk brocade is piled high in this cubbyhole of a shop—cosmetics pouches ($4), wallets and change purses ($2), eyeglass cases ($2), business-card holders ($4), envelopes for packing shirts in suitcases ($20), shoe bags ($3), and loads more. But my favorite items are the bottle openers—shiny lacquered metal disks decorated with colorful Chinese-opera face masks ($2) (168 Dongmen Road).

The worst deal in town for anyone carrying U.S. dollars can be found at Plaza 66 and Three on the Bund, two shopping centers where every European designer whose apparel you’ve ever coveted has a boutique—Marni, Armani, Hugo Boss. They’re the real McCoy, but steer clear unless you’re packing euros or are one of China’s more than forty billionaires, the richest being a woman.

And the best deal? The underground eyeglass market near the railway station. In this bazaar, jam-packed with booths, you can get a pair of stylish, albeit no-name frames, complete with lenses ground to your prescription—all for a negotiated price of about $22.

Speaking of vision, the Shanghai government gives tax breaks to blind masseurs, who, according to many locals, provide the best and cheapest kneading in town (Feining Massage Center of Blind Persons, 597 Fu Xing Road; Song Song Massage Center, 6 Da Pu Road; Jing Xuan Blind Man’s Massage, 674 Yi Shan Road). A forty-five-minute foot massage is about $8; a forty-five-minute body massage is about $14. Based on the foot massage I endured, though, I’d recommend that you first learn the Chinese words for “Ow, not so hard.” I cannot tell you the name of my masseur, because, in keeping with Chinese custom, service people are identified only by number.

The Chinese went to the trouble of inventing porcelain, so the least we can do is shop for it. Remember, in “Measure for Measure,” when Pompey says, “They are not China dishes, but very good dishes”? Some scholars interpret this to mean that Shakespeare loved to rummage through the pottery warehouse at 457 Fang Bang Road for bogus Ming blanc-de-Chine plates and ersatz celadon vases from the Song dynasty (from $7). Methinks, however, that he was trying to say he preferred the creatively proportioned and reasonably priced ceramics at the austerely appointed shop Spin (758 Julu Road, Building No. 3). A bowl with delicate holes on one side looks like it could be the work of artful moths ($11). A block of plaster is cleverly chiselled so as to partially reveal its inner vase of pale green (in three sizes: $10, $70, $84). A large round white charger decomposes into sectional plates and resembles a jigsaw puzzle of a pizza ($928).

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At the Yu Garden Jiang Nan Silk Center, you can watch artisans turn cocoons into silk thread. But the truly miraculous thing is the way they managed to compress all the silk quilts I bought into a parcel practically the size of a box of matzo (125 Jiu Xiao Chang Road, but find it with someone who knows this part of town, as the address is used by dozens of shops surrounding the Yu Garden; $55 to $116, depending on weight).

Never mind that there is all the tea in China at the Tianshan market (520 Zhongshan Xi Road); the truth is, after a few days I started to get tired of wrangling for phenomenal deals. So I was relieved to be taken to Song Fang, a serene, French-owned tea house with non-negotiable prices and a collection of tea caddies painted to look like they are from the Cultural Revolution (227 Yongjia Road; $12 to $46 for 50 grams). The tearoom upstairs, decorated with bamboo birdcages used as lanterns, has free wireless Internet access. After checking your e-mail, you can take a stroll in the French Concession. In the mid-nineteenth century, this neighborhood was granted to the French for them to live in, govern, and do with whatever they pleased. Much of what pleased them took place in brothels and shall go undescribed here. (A hundred and forty years ago, the price of a hooker tended to be ten times the price of a haircut.) Today, the chic enclave has boulevards lined with leafy plane trees imported from Europe in the nineteenth century, plenty of fresh baguettes, shops that stay open until ten, and a beauty parlor called Yuppies Hair Salon.

In what was formerly a candy factory on Taikang Road and spilling out into the surrounding alleys, there are a number of hip boutiques. I was enthralled with the collection in a shop called Jaooh, especially a white cotton jersey dress with an attached asymmetrical brown-and-white checked linen vest (Shop 47, Lane 248; $87). At Jooi, a polyester Rooney the Rat bag—so called in honor of the year of that rodent—is pretty nifty, too (Shop 3, Lane 210; $33).

The astonishingly encyclopedic selection of bootleg DVDs and boxed sets at a little outlet called Movie World are a genuine steal (378 Dagu Road). Across the street is Even Better Than Movie World, which is true to its name (407 Dagu Road). You can pick up a collection of the Coen brothers’ oeuvre, seasons one to three of “Lost,” or just about any other movie or TV show ever shown or about to be shown ($7, $22, $1 to $2). Before you start thinking about setting up a nice little DVD-import business from your home office, though, note this: the United States Customs and Border Protection allows returning travellers to bring into the country only one counterfeit/gray-market article “of each type.”

I have no idea, however, what the policy is regarding the dead sea horses and powdered bear bile that are for sale in big glass jars behind the counter at Tong Han Chun Tang, established in 1783 (268 Zhong Shan Zhong Road). Or the Nourish the Ovary Defer Decrepitude pills and Onlly Smart-Brain Liquid at the Shanghai No. 1 Dispensary (various locations).

When I first arrived in Shanghai, I was puzzled by the sight of grown men moseying through the streets in Teddy-bear-patterned pajamas. That was before someone explained the semiotics to me. Now I know: such a man either has finished work for the day or is having a day off, and, along with all the other men and women who are wearing pajamas in public, he is telling the world, Yes, I may be working class, but I have leisure time, not to mention enough money for an extra set of silk pajamas (state-regulated Friendship stores; $55 to $81).

The clothes at Cha Gang, a tiny boutique in the French Concession, are not for everyone, and I’m glad about that, because it leaves more for me. There’s a cushion motif to the cunning creations of the shop’s designer, Wang Yiyang—T-shirt dresses with thick padded hems ($210), coats you could hide out in ($616), plaid scarves that look like squishy flannel tubes ($22), slippers with spongy six-inch-long pointed vamps ($76), and puffy patent-leather purses ($152). A pair of leather handbags in the shape of oversized mittens—one says “left” and the other says “right,” in Chinese—made me smile, and then I wondered whether perhaps they were actually mittens made to look like handbags. Either way, they are attached to each other by a khaki strap and are meant to be slung over the shoulder like a canteen (70 Yongfu Road; $145).

A cheongsam (or qipao) is a long, body-hugging, embroidered dress with a standup collar, usually made of silk. I would feel like an extra in “The World of Suzie Wong” wearing one. But you may feel differently, or maybe you are a movie extra. For you, the place to go is Maoming Road, particularly the section between Huaihai Road and NanChang Road ($150 to $500 for a topnotch cheongsam). For a hip version, perhaps trimmed in fur or adorned with see-through chrysanthemums, try Jinzhiyuye (72 Maoming South Road).

A sleeveless dress of ivory silk, decorated with a line drawing of a bicycle that spans nearly the whole circumference of the hem, is arguably the most glamorous item of clothing in Shanghai. It can be found at Anybody’s Blonde, the Shanghai branch of the hugely popular Russian-owned franchise, which is called So French in that country (351 Zizhong Road; $374).

No matter how you feel about the opera, the exquisite outerwear made by the designer Han Feng will make you want to be seen there, seated in a prominent box (particularly if you’re wearing Han’s diaphanous silk-organza coat with beaded-fish detail). Maybe it’s not a coincidence, then, that this Shanghai-based designer made the costumes for the Met’s 2006 and 2007 productions of “Madame Butterfly” (Jinjiang Hotel, 59 Maoming South Road, by appointment only).

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These getups would also make lovely wedding attire. No prospects? Parents shopping for suitable mates for their children gather in the city’s parks most weekends to scrutinize and discuss the résumés of candidates, handwritten on bits of paper and torn sheets of cardboard taped to trees, resting on benches, and leaning against the risers of stone steps. The personals (so specific that they include details like “hunts for girl 163 cm”) are written by other yearning mothers and fathers.

Shanghai’s Old City is a congestion of narrow lanes and two- and three-story stone gatehouses from the early twentieth century. Many of them shelter three or more persons to a room. On the ground floor is a communal kitchen, shared by the families occupying the building. The sink is outside. Down the block is a neighborhood toilet, but many residents use wood or enamel chamber pots, typically painted with colorful flowers (eighteenth-century Imari chamber pot, Chine-de-Commande.com; $2,900). There is no lack of enterprise in this district. Note, for instance, the man with a rag who has a car-wash business ($1.45 for the car’s exterior and interior), and the man who repairs shoes and umbrellas (new sole, $1.40; 22 cents a spoke). On the sidewalk, under the shade, is the rice lady (uncooked grains, from 23 cents per pound). Next to her, a woman working a treadle sewing machine will cuff a pair of pants for 75 cents. The old guy sitting in a storefront, using a magnifying glass to help him read the screen on his cell phone? He’s the local barber (45 cents a haircut). A family making crullers, savory bread, and hot soybean milk outside their shikumen cooks with homemade charcoal lumps (each breakfast item is about a dime; charcoal not for sale). Stencilled and spray-painted almost everywhere on the peeling façades of buildings are Chinese characters and Arabic numerals advertising the services of local entrepreneurs, complete with cell-phone numbers. They make for the most fantastic-looking Rolodex ever.

Not far away is Old Street, choked with tourists and not nearly as old as it wants you to think it is. Along this drag, you’ll find piles of kitschy book bags, musical lighters, Red Guard caps, and cheesy busts of Mao for sale (a wristwatch with Mao’s waving arm as a second hand: $4). Even more Cultural Revolution-inspired curios, at radical prices, but nicer than the ones on the street, can be bought at Madame Mao’s Dowry (207 Fumin Road). Is it just me, or does Mao memorabilia seem akin to Inquisition cutlery or Holocaust stemware?