I think US culture overall frowns upon non-original works. From school there's some push against working on something that is a copy of someone else's work. In the meantime China has mastered copying and made it a big part of their culture and economy.

Nowadays I'm learning game engine techniques by reading Godot code and implementing the damn same thing in my engine... Also, nowadays I like tracing pretty anime drawings... I enjoy it more and end up with something I like better than if I were to draw something original.