Being A Southpaw in China
One comment I have heard from countless Chinese in China is - you are really smart.
Now, this has got nothing to do with any dazzling display of intelligence on my part. Nor was the comment made at the end of an IQ test.
The comment usually comes from newsmakers, public relations types, interviewees, hotel clerks, even total strangers, when they discover that I write with my left hand.
Actually I am ambidextrous. I write and brush my teeth with my left hand. But can only use my right hand when handling a pair of scissors or playing racket games.
Most Chinese find me a rarity. Not only would they express amazement that I am left-handed, some would add - as if watching a canine perform an amazing stunt - “wow, even with her left hand she can write so fast!”
But what I found amazing is the fact that there are so few left-handed people in a country with a population of 1.3 billion.
In 1998, a study suggested that seven to ten per cent of the adult population is left-handed. In China, this should translate to at least 100 million southpaws.
But throughout my time spent in China, I have not met even one single lefty. A few Chinese I met said they were left-handed when they were young, but had been “corrected” to use their right. One still uses his left hand when handling a pair of chopsticks. But writing with the left, it seems, is strictly a no-no.
The Chinese aversion to the left is in line with many other cultures.
In Hebrew, the left hand symbolized the power to shame society, and was used as a metaphor for misfortune, natural evil, or punishment from the gods.
In many European languages, “right” is not only a synonym for correctness, but also stands for authority and justice. In Portuguese, the most common word for a left-handed person canhoto was once used to identify the devil.
In Chinese, zuo (or left) means “improper” or “out of control.”
But In recent years, most cultures worldwide have stopped seeing left-handed people as a social abnormality.
In Britain, a study in the 1970s found that around 11 percent of men and women aged 15-24 were left-handed, compared to just 3 percent in the 55-64 age category. The study suggested that “cultural pressures” were to be blamed for the fewer incidences of left-handedness among the older generation.
But that was then. Over the past several years, most left-handers have been “liberated” from the stigma of being one.
Yet, this “liberalization” has yet to make much of a presence felt in China. This probably has much to do with ingrained custom and habit, as it is with “cultural pressures.”
But as the Chinese are allowed greater personal freedoms, it is possible that teachers and parents might be less anxious in correcting their “wayward” charges.
After all, I look forward to the day where writing with my left hand would no longer raise eye-brows in China - a country that has increasingly tolerated if not allowed differences and diversity among its people.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:12 am
i read somewhere that the world/society is recognizing left handeds, as such one particular country is developing the daily use of items(taken for granted) to be more left handed friendly. like the ruler.
there is hope for left handeds!
July 20th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I am a lefthander and proud of it! =D
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I remember how as a child I would envy left-handed friends. =) I wish I could be left handed or at least write with both hands. I can, to a certain degree, but writing from my left hand resembles those of a primary school kid. ^.^”
But it must be frustrating to be left-handed because when you write, you write towards the right side so won’t your hand be all smudged with ink?
August 7th, 2008 at 1:04 am
This is really interesting to be because i had assumed there were tons of left handed people in asian nations like China and Japan. It seemed to me that we write with out right hands because out writing goes left to right, and in order to write calligraphy and use brushes and inks from right to left, one would need to be left handed to do it skillfully. Guess i was wrong. Thank you very much for this article though, because it sure did answer a lot of my questions.