"The Jews of the East" is a very old term for describing overseas Chinese in the rest of Asia. My dad knew it from his own childhood. I saw it in TIME magazine during the 1950s in the reports of anti-Chinese rioting in Indonesia where mobs invaded the business districts of many cities, torching Chinese business establishments and murdering about 2,000 Chinese, including preganant women who were disembowelled. The babies were cut out of their wombs and thrown into the flames. This was so similar to what had happened to the Jews in Eastern Europe - - the violence and hatred of the mobs, the people who have no homeland, or left it behind, who show more enterprise and ingenuity than the locals and always seem to know how to make money despite being aliens (hard work and perseverence) and so excite their resentment (maybe provoking it by alien ways which are seen as rudeness by the more laid-back locals) and using their own language, intermarrying only among themselves till the rage among the ignorant morons whom they have to live with boils over - - the parallels between the overseas Chinese and the Jews were eerie.
In terms of North American Chinese, I believe we are seeing only the cream of the cream - - the math whizzes, etc., are NOT representative of the typical Chinese back on the mainland. They are representative of the kind of people who can satisfy the immigration officers of the U.S.A. or Canada that they are worthy of being admitted to these hallowed shores. Millions apply, few are chosen. Don't think the chosen few are exactly the same as the rest who applied. That would be a huge mistake. On average I can't see how the Chinese would be any smarter or dumber than anyone else. We selected the best of the best, and it works to our benefit.
