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I doubt it, because to compose a new word you don’t need much creativity – a skill of randomly arranging letters would be sufficient. Deriving a theorem (I assume you mean a valid theorem) requires much more ‘seeing’ unless it is a very very trivial theorem (which would still probably require more creativity than randomly arranging letters). I don’t think that you should take this dialogue as an offense – forget about Asian/post-Soviet/any other generalization. Let’s just say that when one is being pushed into one field because of some reason (by some social standards/expectations, etc.) he will find it hard to be able to focus on something entirely different, and the sad part is that he will have no choice (just as I didn’t while I stayed in my country). I support freedom of choice – you can choose what to be creative in, and parents/relatives/EVERYONE doesn’t keep telling you what to do, how to do, and so on.</p>