How do locals know which market vendor has seen the most change?
Some people measure time with clocks. Others measure it with stories.
Locals usually know through stories, memories, and the vendor's ability to compare the present with decades of experience.
An old market vendor points to a parking lot.
"There used to be a cinema there," he says.
Then he points somewhere else.
"That was a bakery. And over there, children used to play football."
The hidden mechanism is social memory. Long-time vendors become unofficial historians because they witness everyday life year after year.
People often think history belongs in museums.
Sometimes it stands behind a fruit stall and remembers things no map can show.
