The Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Shanghai is an extremely active organization. It hosts talks with news makers as well as cultural and social events.
Several of its members have been very kind in showing me around the city. Bill Marcus, a Shanghai-based freelance business and political journalist, entered me a raffle that netted me a case of Veuve Clicquot Champage. I immediately threw a party.
Betta Plebani, who reports for BBC Brazil and other radio news programs, has introduced me to the city’s “wet” produce markets and the fabric market, where you can buy silk and get it sewed into the outfits of your choice. It’s a joy to watch her haggle in Italian-accented Chinese. The woman is a linguistic marvel — she speaks fluent English, Russian, Spanish, Portueguese, Dutch and I don’t know how many other languages.
