Vancouver resident Trixie Ling recalls her disgust and anger after a passing stranger taunted her with racial and sexual slurs in early May. Then he spat on her face. "I was feeling a mixture of shock, the disgust, the sadness that it happened to me," says Ling in an interview with AFP near the scene.

"But I knew I'm not the only one this has happened to." Ling is indeed not alone. A new survey obtained by AFP suggests the problem is deeply rooted: One in four British Columbians of East Asian descent said someone in their home had been targeted with "racial slurs or insults" since March, according to the ResearchCo poll of 1,600 adults.