Tiling

Without a car, motorcycle or bicycle in Taiwan, I spent a lot of time on the sidewalks. Rather than spreading layers of cement as in the US, the sidewalks in Tainan are mostly tilings of brick.

It would be hard to get a big cement truck into some areas and repair is easier when the materials are "modularized. But they get more complicated as time go on.

But not restricted to rectangles

And for particular areas they can go custom.

Over large areas, they must have a grand plan in mind.

I once saw brickman in Tainan laying a new curving sidewalk. The younger, "journeyman" brickman was laying out the middle of the path. The the older, "master" brickman came along and matched the narrow spaces to the curving edges. It required some "marrying" of edges.

These bricks are heavy and spending the whole day moving bricks has got to be a tough job. I remember in Ireland, they said: "A brickman never picks up the same brick twice." The meaning was that all bricks were picked up once and then placed, no chance for testing, fitting, mistakes. A tough physical job with, I think, a learned skill.