The visitor in the old town

Watch a first-time visitor walk through al-Balad in Jeddah and you can tell within a minute who is new.

They slow down. They watch how the shopkeepers greet one another, and copy it. They ask before photographing a carved wooden window, and step aside for the man carrying crates up the narrow lane. When the shops close for prayer, they wait outside rather than knock. Without anyone asking, they are on their best behaviour.

The regular, the person who has walked these lanes for years, often is not. Phone out, cutting through, haggling hard out of habit, gone before anyone has looked up.

We tend to think of good manners as something we do for other people. The visitor is being considerate, and the shopkeeper's afternoon goes more smoothly because of it. That part is true, and it is the part everyone expects.

The less obvious part is who gets the better afternoon. The visitor is offered a seat. They hear who built the house with the green balcony and why it leans. A seller sends them to the lane where the light falls well at sunset. They leave with a story about the place. The person in a hurry leaves with a bag.

The same holds in a shop, a new job, a family that is not yet ours. Attention is usually described as a cost we pay so that others are comfortable. More often it is what lets us into the better version of wherever we happen to be.