Their jagged peeks held me captive as a child and I couldn’t wait to show my own children the Rockies. We drove in awe, pulling over to take pictures of breathtaking mountains piercing the sky. Not wanting the drive to end we stopped in the touristy town of Banff, nestled in the beauty. It was winter and the streets were full of wind-burnt skiers and snowboarders who all knew where they were going and I suddenly felt like I didn’t belong, like I was in China again.

We had to cross a four-lane road to get to the shops and that is when I started acting like I was in China. Now first, let me give you some insight. For the past several years I have been diligent about crossing the streets in China carefully but that means something totally different there, than it does here.

The roads in China are filled with buses, cars, scooters, rickshaws and bicycles going in every direction at once. Whoever can drive forward will, even when a traffic light says that they shouldn’t. A ‘go’ symbol for pedestrians does not mean that you can safely walk across the street.

A good friend described it this way: If you remember the old video game ‘Frogger’, it pretty much demonstrates our strategy for crossing the street. We wait until it is clear, run across  one lane and then stop, cross another, then stop, all the while hoping not to get hit. Once we’ve made it through the main traffic we still have the scooter late to cross, which defines chaos.

In Canada we tell our kids to walk across the street but in China I’m often yelling, “Run for your lives!”

Imagine crossing this road with three kids!

So back in Banff, when we finally found a parking spot and got out of the car I was excited to cross the highway and visit the little shops. I grabbed two of my kids hands, looked for oncoming traffic and with head held high started marching them across the street. “Wow, there are hardly any cars,” I thought to myself as a vehicle flew by. It wasn’t until we were half way across that I saw the gaping mouths of pedestrians on the opposite side of the road. They were all waiting for the little red hand to turn to a walk symbol.

“Oops, sorry,” I mouthed, realizing my blooper. I was too far to turn back so I continued, head hung low, and pulled my children through our audience on the other side.

We’re in Canada, I reprimanded myself. But with all eyes on me, I felt like a foreigner again.