[Teh_Bandwagoner]

I am SO angry at the moment. I can't even sleep.

Today a few friends and I took a trip to Banff. So we're walking up the road towards the Banff hotsprings, which has a single narrow sidewalk up the hill. As we're going up, we pass an older couple (probably in their late 60s), so we move to the right of the sidewalk to give them room, but they don't move for us. So as we walk by, the wife of the elderly couple run into my friend, an East Indian guy. So the husband turns around and gives us a dirty look. My Indian friend apologizes, but as we start moving on, the old man says:

"Watch where you're going, you're in CANADA now."

Immediately both him and I turn around and say "Uh EXCUSE me??" and we both start yelling at this guy and just giving it to him about his stupid racist comment. Then the guy's wife says to us "respect your elders!" Are you kidding me?? The f-in nerve. They want MY respect? I'm sorry but in my mind the second you make a racist comment, you are no longer worthy of my respect!

I'm Chinese. I'm Calgary born-and-raised, university-educated and a professional engineer. And yet in this day and age I'm STILL being judged by the colour of my skin?? I've experienced racism across the globe in my travels and have been able to brush it off. But having to experience it so close to home has really struck a nerve with me. Being judged on how I look feels like everything my family and I have worked so hard for has been indignated by some old fool.

I really hope this couple is merely an anomaly and not a trend in the world, and I really hope that his prejudistic values don't get passed onto their children.