Chinese Jewish of a Different Kind

My Jewish friend P adopted a Chinese baby and P naturally calls her daughter Chinese Jewish. I met a different kind in China.

As we hang out with some of the country's big movie and theater stars, we met this actor's wife who came to keep him company. Her husband said something like she doesn't eat pork because she is Muslim. During the conversations, I learnt that she is one of the Chinese-Jewish descendents. She has 1/16 Jewish in her. I talked many times with my Jewish friends in North America about Jews coming to live in China in the turn of the century. They didn't particularly experience the discriminations like in other places. They married Chinese and became part of them.

How ironic a Chinese-Jewish descendent accepts her ID as a Muslim? She said on her father's citizenship card, it reads, word for word, "Muslim (Chinese Jewish)." We can say that the Chinese are ignorant to see Muslim and Jewish as the same. Or can we ponder more as why the Chinese have such perspective? Do we need to emphasis so much on the differences or should we need to find the common ground to pave the way for understanding.