One thing that I’m not sure I will ever get used to in Taiwan is earthquakes.

I have experienced 6 since I have been here, including a tiny one last night. The first one almost bounced me off my bed, the second two aren’t very memorable, the fourth was while my mom was in town + was pretty big—6.0 in Nantou County—+ the last major one was Sunday, June 2, right before our final performance of Grandpa’s Dream in Tainan.

We were literally standing on stage, ready to go out to greet the children when the stage lights above us started rumbling + rubble began to fall from the ceiling. I quickly found my way to the doorway of the ladies’ dressing room which swayed quite a bit, seemingly on less secure foundation than the stage. The movement lasted about a minute, registering 5.0 in Tainan + 6.3 at its epicenter, in Nantou Country, in the middle of the island.

Amazingly none of the children in the audience seemed at all phased by it + almost immediately it was on with the show. No wonder I was woozy after the performance. We performed right through any aftershocks that there might have been! (The pics of us cheesin’ below were taken in our dressing room minutes before the quake.)

That is one wacky show closing experience that I can say with almost complete certainty I will never experience again. While thankfully no one at the theatre was hurt, rock falls killed 4 people in Nantou County + stranded many hikers. My thoughts go out to those affected by the quake.

Since “Shake, Rattle & Roll” hardly seems appropriate, I’m going to close this one with a seemingly random song. There is a subway performer who I used to always see at the 6th Avenue L platform in NYC. He had a voice like Curtis Mayfield + played a keyboard with a piece of masking tape with the words “The Show Must Go On” taped to it. Any time I think of the phrase “The show must go on,” I see that piece of tape. This is one of the songs he liked to sing.