When Louis C.K. joked “Why can’t we have racism that’s ignorant, but nice?” he probably had never heard of Chinese media personality Gao Xiaosong. But, in a case of life imitating art, it seems as if Gao has gone ahead and given Louis exactly what he asked for. On a recent episode of Gao’s popular internet talk show Xiao Shuo, the host took it upon himself to tackle those most vexing of Jewish questions “Why are Jews so smart?” and “Where do Jewish surnames come from?“. As you’ve probably guessed, Gao’s answers weren’t entirely, you know,”correct”. But, they are flattering, and if nothing else – completely entertaining.
Make sure you’ve got the Closed Captioning on to see the English subtitles.
This isn’t Gao’s first foray into examining the Jewish condition, either. On a recent episode of Xiao Shuo, he explained that:
What else are Jewish people good at [other than business]? Music! At one point more than half of the world’s violinists and pianists were Jews. So, Jewish people are adept in music and business, which is why Hollywood could only happen in America. In other places, people are either good at business or good at art; England, France, China are all like this. But only Jews love doing business and creating art and the result is Hollywood. It’s their place. When I was hanging out in Hollywood, we never said ‘cheers’, only ‘mazeltov.’
And later:
Chinese IQs are about even with Jewish people; together they’re the two smartest ethnicities in the US. It’s just that they have different interests. Smart Jewish guys are doing business, whereas smart Chinese guys are doing research
Stereotypes? Sure. But, with plenty of actually antisemitic bigotry out there, we could do a lot worse.
The least the Chinese could do, if they really wanted to be nice, would be to start patronizing our delis
Yeah, no Jews were ever involved in research… I guess he hasn’t heard of a little thing called the Nobel prize? Another example of people not letting facts get in the way of their preconceived notions.
It’s both insulting and adorable at the same time.
Maybe Jewish people are so smart because they eat Chinese food.
When I went to Bronx Science, being named “Wolf” was a distinct advantage when taking Regents exams and other tests where the students were seated alphabetically… it meant I could look over the shoulder of someone named “Wong” (and there were many!)
[…] as doing so might result in their children “also be[ing] geniuses.” In China recently, a cartoon came out that explained “why Jews are so smart.” And in the USA, we toe a fine line between […]
One bit of unconscious bigotry, I think:
When the man jokingly implies that the woman might be Jewish because her name means “small,” she doesn’t like that at all, and says “I hate you.”
Now think about that: would you resent someone for taking you for a European (say, French or British or Scandinavian) or for a WASP? Certainly not. Many would feel flattered.