I was asleep when the phone rang. Jay-Z and Linkin Park rapping 99 Problems interrupted a midday nap and an interesting dream I can’t quite remember. I didn’t recognize the number. That didn’t mean much; I get a lot of calls from unknown numbers.

“Hello?” I said, trying to sound fully awake.

“Hello, Dear.”

It was my wife. I had received a text message over night, but hadn’t heard her voice since she left early Monday morning.

“How are you,” I asked.

A giggle. Then, “We’re in Washington DC.”

“How are you?”

“I’m sick.”

“Sick?”

“I was sick on the bus this morning.”

My wife suffers from motion sickness so intense that I sometimes wonder if it is a biblical plague (not to be confused with bubonic plague). Many Chinese people are the same way. “Sick bags” hang from bus handrails.

“Tomorrow, go buy some medicine,” I told her, “Ask for something that won’t make you sleepy.” I had visions of my beloved, full of dimenhydrinate, ushering teenagers around America. I’ve seen her in the morning, and the idea of a sleepy Mrs. Stevo, wandering through the Smithsonian, made me uneasy.

“It was raining at the capitol today. We had to run for the bus. I tripped on my trousers and fell down. I have nowhere to wash them.”

I quietly groaned. Her trip was not off to a good start.

“How was the flight?” I asked.

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I am not in this photo (thankfully). Mrs. Stevo is in green.

“It was fine. I was sick when we started to land in San Francisco.”

“In a bag?” I asked. I had a vision of my wife, not knowing about airline barf bags voiding her stomach in the aisle of packed 747.

“Yes, in the bag,” she said. “The students felt sorry for me.”

I was relieved while feeling her pain. She managed a flight last summer without difficulty.

“Tomorrow, buy some medicine,” I said again.

“I’m okay if I don’t eat,” she explained.

I knew her trip for the next few days would consist of being herded on and off buses. Not eating wouldn’t work. For a 90 pound woman my wife can pack away a heroic portion of rice. I’ve also come to believe that snacking is mandated under Chinese law.

“We saw a lot of foreigners today.”

“You’re in America. Now, you’re the foreigner,” I said.

She laughed.

“There were a lot of black people.”

I smiled. After getting to know a few black teachers she has been able to overcome the stereotypical belief that black is bad.

“There are a lot of black people in America,” I said. And everywhere, outside of China. “Did you see any fat women?”

She giggled again and said, “Oh my God.”

I laughed. A Chinese woman that a foreign man would consider curvaceous is called “a little fat” by her Chinese friends. My wife, seeing the fast-food nation and its victims up close would be awed.

The talk turned to all the men reminding her of me. She conceded I was more handsome, or would be if I shaved the goatee I’ve been growing since school ended.

We said goodbye.

She is on an eye-opening adventure, something few of her colleagues will ever be able to do. Properly medicated she should do just fine.

The same goes for me.