The Five Chinese Brothers

Genuine conversation with a stranger feels rare these days, though now and then it still occurs. There was a time when we managed it without documenting ourselves mid-sentence. Without selfies or screens to retreat into, we argued about politics and religion, traded thoughts on music and art, and debated the latest news. I met fascinating people of every stripe that way.

Just the other day on the Staten Island Ferry, I struck up a conversation with a young philosophy student. Curious, I asked whom she was reading. I expected the usual names—Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Marx. Instead, she said The Five Chinese Brothers (1938) by Claire Huchet Bishop.

I assumed she was joking—until she pulled a worn, beat-up old copy of the children’s book from her bag. Its pages were thick with notes. Leafing through it, she explained how she tries to live her life according to its lessons.

Improbable as it sounds, I found her infinitely more interesting—and far more compelling—than most chance encounters these days. I’m not sure I’m ready to order myself a copy of the children’s tale, but I admired the conviction with which she tried to order her own life. In an age when so many drift without any guiding idea at all, that kind of seriousness is rare. While I wish she had found the Faith, there are certainly worse places to begin.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, March 5th, Feast of San Giovan Giuseppe della Croce