Chosen we may be, but clever and rich too?

My mother is Jewish. Funnily enough this makes me, despite my lack of faith in anything Jewish, Jewish. Lest I offend anyone, let's just say I am a member of the "quasi-historical community" of Jewish identity, as Jean-Paul Sartre once referred to it. Better yet, let's say I am a quasi-historical Jew.

Under ordinary circumstances, being a Jew by ethnicity gives me little more than a big nose and the right to high-five other Jews (it's in the Torah; look it up). Being a Jew in China, though, to my perpetual amusement, gives me instant genetic clout. If in a conversation with a native Chinese person I admit to my Jewish ancestry, the very next words out of his/her mouth will often be:

"Ah, Jews are very clever."