Father pulled me and the rest of our family from the interpretive centre back to the van and sped down Highway 3. We made another stop, in the town of Hillcrest. We approached a parched cemetery. The gravestones were stark white against the yellow-green grass, like pieces of chalk sticking out of the ground. Mother read the informational panels, telling us that the mine at Hillcrest was the site of Canada’s worst coal-mining disaster when a gas and dust explosion killed nearly 200 men. All that remained was this gravesite and the white fence enclosing it.

“Is this a tour of the mines, Swee Hua?” Father asked. “Not much of a vacation.”

“Ah Loy, you said you wanted to get to know the country better. These are the tourist attractions near us. There is a lot of mining history here. There is no shame in the girls learning this. Haven’t you always said this is our life now?” Mother said.

Father said no more, and we moved on to Lundbreck Falls, an impressive cascade of water falling from the Crowsnest River. The area was crowded with families cooling off from the hot summer day. After a lunch of my mother’s version of coleslaw with rice wine vinegar and fried dace in a can, Bea and I put on our swimsuits and jumped into the cold mountain water, a welcome reprieve from the heat. My parents sat on the bank, Mother in sunglasses with a magazine in hand, Father with a cigarette.

Only after Mother had read all of Auntie Choo Neo’s old magazines did she call us to come out of the water. As she towelled us off, I noticed a woman suntanning nearby. She peered at us first through her sunglasses, and then rested them on her blond, curly hair. She looked at us like we had just walked into a party uninvited.

The woman spoke very slowly. “Hello. Where are you from?”

“We’re from Sparwood,” Bea replied.

“Oh my! Your English is quite good. Where is your mom from?”

“My mom is from Sparwood, too.” Bea seemed confused by the question.

The woman laughed. “But you’re Oriental!”

Before the conversation could continue, Mother dragged us to the parking lot and into the van, forcing us to finish changing into our clothes there.

Father returned from the washroom and said, “What’s the hurry?”

“Some woman kept asking where we were from,” Bea said.

Father looked back and saw a lot of people collected on the riverbank. “What did you say?” he asked.

“Sparwood,” Bea replied.

Father turned to Mother, waiting for an explanation.

“Be eio kin, lah. Don’t worry about it,” Mother said and kept packing up our things.

Father looked annoyed and sucked on his cigarette, as if to soothe himself. We set off on the next leg of the trip, and he played a cassette tape to fill the silence. No words were spoken between my parents about this incident, but our vacation had soured, like a soup with too many pieces of bitter melon left out to spoil.