It could be, Sher-e-Hindustan. Half a century ago, large proportion of the many Japanese kids in my Vernon high school outperformed most everyone, too.  But it goes back even farther: In 1925, the B.C. provincial government did a School System survey. Findings were shocking: Japanese kids were brighter than Chinese kids, but both were “greatly superior to the average white population.”  These findings appeared to be confirmed later in the year, when Japanese-born student Nobuichi Yamaoka led the province in high school entrance examinations. Yamaoka had arrived in B.C. just three years earlier, speaking no English at all.   

The Prince Rupert Daily News, maintained “...whites are not able to compete with the Orientals either in labour or study ... the ‘yellow peril’ is not yellow battleships nor yellow settlers, but yellow intelligence.”  
(SOURCES George Bowering: Bowering's B.C.; Patricia Roy: British Columbians' Fear of Asians)