While Korea pushes top talent to medicine, China backs engineering career

A scene from Chinese streaming platform iQIYI’s original drama “The Best Thing” shows Chinese actor Zhang Linghe as He Suye, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor at a university hospital. Courtesy of iQIYI Korea

Jiang Qiaoxi, a character in the Chinese drama “Our Generation,” is a math prodigy. His mother is determined to have him win the Math Olympiad and enter Peking University or Tsinghua University. To that end, she controls not only his studies but also his private life and romantic relationships. She even sends him to a residential training camp for Math Olympiad contestants. If the hit Korean drama “SKY Castle” captured the country’s obsession with medical school, this Chinese drama offers a glimpse of China’s admiration for engineering.

Zhang Linghe, the actor who plays Jiang, faced similarly strict guidance from his own mother during his school years. Zhang, who is tall, fair-skinned and strikingly handsome, has an unexpected academic background. He studied electrical engineering at Nanjing Normal University. Zhang, now a global star following the success of “Pursuit of Jade,” told the People’s Daily that Jiang’s school days resembled his own. Even when he came home with a score of 98, he said, he was scolded because it was not 100. He was constantly compared with students who did better.

In Korea, if a child showed unusual talent in mathematics from an early age, many Korean parents would most likely push a career path toward medicine instead of engineering.

Another memorable scene comes from the Chinese drama “The Best Thing,” in which Zhang plays He Suye, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner at a university hospital. The female lead’s ex-boyfriend, the founder of a robotics startup, shouts at He, “What can a poor traditional Chinese medicine doctor do for her?” During a visit to BYD, the electric vehicle company in Shenzhen, late last month, the scene came up in conversation with a young female employee. Her answer was revealing.

“Actually, in China today, people think it's really cool if you run a robotics or AI company.” In other words, the line made sense to local viewers.

A woman cosplays as a robot at the Geely booth during Auto China 2026 in Beijing, April 24. AP-Yonhap

Shenzhen is often called China’s Silicon Valley. The headquarters of Huawei, BYD, DJI and Tencent are located there, with engineering talents from across China converging in the city. Chinese engineering graduates, now rising to the top ranks of global science and technology research output, have changed the earlier negative perception of products made in China.

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) battery makers are now rolling out technologies that allow EVs to travel farther on a single charge than cars powered by internal combustion engines. China is also accelerating in semiconductors, a field where it still lags. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said the big tech has “largely conceded” China's chip markets to Huawei. China’s rise as a technological powerhouse is driven by a society that intensely prioritizes engineering — a cultural shift where even popular television dramas elevate a robotics entrepreneur above a medical doctor.

A scene from JTBC drama “SKY Castle” / Courtesy of JTBC

With the exclusion of the semiconductor industry, Korea is under mounting pressure from China’s challenge in most manufacturing sectors. Politicians can keep telling students, “Go to engineering school, not medical school,” but how much good will that do? Talent does not move because of slogans alone. It moves when engineers can receive rewards comparable to doctors.

Could the surge in stock prices for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, paired with substantial performance bonuses, provide that opportunity? Beyond earlier labor disputes, if technology companies establish a system that shares the practical gains of strong performance through cash and stock, it could have a positive effect on the career choices of the younger generation.

Huawei’s ability to attract top talent also rests on a powerful employee shareholding system. Korea should draw the obvious lesson. Students will not choose engineering because politicians tell them to. They will only do so when society makes it a respected, stable and rewarding career.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.