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Posts: 4935

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Q: What's wrong with being left-handed here?

Every time I try to write with my left-hand, someone stops me and tells me to use my right hand, or stops and asks me why I use it. Why? It's so weird.

10 years 47 weeks ago in  Culture - China

 
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im told 9 percent of people are left handed but a child is forced to write chinese characters with the right hand in school, so when they get older, they dont even remember being left handed.

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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1263

Shifu

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I keep getting told I must be incredibly intelligent because I am a lefty.

Apparently that's a thing.

ambivalentmace:

dont know why american politics is going left but it might be the last 4 presidents are left handed, we're doomed.

10 years 47 weeks ago
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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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Since you aren't following the same behavioural pattern as the rest of the drone population, they think there is something wrong with you, that you might be retarded

Hulk:

Little do they know, they're 100% correct. devil

10 years 47 weeks ago
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:

That's rich.

10 years 47 weeks ago
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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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I never thought of this. in India you must eat with your right and wipe with your left. Do Chinese wipe?

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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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It is considered "wrong".

Until the 1960's in many parts of the US, people thought that if you were Left Handed you were being influenced by the Devil.

There is an old Spanish saying, "los zurdos no van al cielo" (The left handed do not go to Heaven).

I used to be left handed but I was "made" right handed.(Note: At this time , I was studying in a secular school).

Hulk:

Are you kidding me? That's so messed up... then again, my grandparents were beaten by nuns when they didn't speak English in school.

10 years 47 weeks ago
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TedDBayer:

If you used fountain or dip in ink pens and wrote with your left hand, the hand would touch and smear the ink. The pen follows the right hand. Some old single room school houses used to board up the left side windows so it was harder to read if you wrote left handed.

10 years 47 weeks ago
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GuilinRaf:

Sounds about right, but....

Middle Easterners use their right hand but write righ to left, which would be the same as an Westerner writing left to right, and they dont smear it.

My mother is left handed and she uses a fountain pen, and never EVER smears (yet I manage to do so with a "paper-mate" pen....)

How do they do it?

10 years 47 weeks ago
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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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land of ignorance.

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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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According to my father, when I was very young I showed signs of being left-handed, he forced me to be right-handed by continually putting things in my right hand and minor punishments for using my left hand, (not beatings just verbal punishments). This eventually worked and I quickly became right-handed.  My Father said he did this because he didn't want a 'left-footer' as a son, 'left-footer' is a mild insult in his home area of SW Scotland but it is also 'code' for Roman Catholic and in his youth my father was an ardent Orangeman and Glasgow Rangers fan, (indeed in those days you couldn't be a Rangers fan unless you were an Orangeman).

However, being left-handed is more than which hand (or foot) you prefer to use, many years later I was taking archery lessons and it turned out I was left-eye dominant, but right handed, which makes archery virtually impossible. This also went a long way to explain why I was an awful shot with a rifle (but tolerable with a pistol as I could 'switch' eyes) and to this day my handwriting is awful.

 

So, it may well be that the old 'fears' of being left-handed that were widespread in our home nations, that have been 'educated out' of most people are still prevalent in China. Of course whether they too educate these asinine prejudices out remains to be seen.

 

P.S. My daughter is showing early signs of perhaps being left-handed and due to my personal history I'm determined she will not be 'trained' to be that which she is not, so interesting times ahead when she starts writing Chinese at school.

Hulk:

Interesting. I really never knew that there was such a stigma. People did try to get me to use my right hand, but I utterly refused (I'm extremely stubborn, and have always been). I use both hands for most tasks, but write with the left hand. I'm actually a master sharpshooter *best Steven Seagal impression*, so I can't relate to your archery issues.


Good on you for raising your daughter right. Have a dumpling.

10 years 47 weeks ago
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andyinshenyang:

Exactly the same thing happened to my dad for exactly the same reason.  You can imagine the disbelief in my family when my dad was offered a deal by Celtic! (He didn't accept!)

 

My dad chose to ignore the input of his father and teachers and became ambidextrous,a trait which I inherited, so it didn't work out too badly.

10 years 47 weeks ago
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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1989

Peasant

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A girl I know who came to Guangzhou from the UK was riding the metro when an older Chinese man saw her writing with her left hand. He told her in English that if one of his children did that he would beat them.

 

1. Shitty parent

2. None of his business

3. His kids probably hate him

4. Nice English!

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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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Hulky poopsy baby it's because you are originally right handed and trying to write with your left just doesn't cut it. Use the hand you are most good at and that's your right one. 

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10 years 47 weeks ago

There are cookies, bookies and too many rookies for me to sit here trying to be a hooky! Looky Looky don't call me a wooky. Touchy Touchy Feely Feely Spicy Spicy Nicey Nicey & that's what the doctor Ordered!!

 
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Actually in old days in Europe, left handed people was also "forced" to write with the right hand as, when you wrote with feather and ink, using the left hand would result in a very poor result. 

My wife is left handed (I think) she does everything with her right hand, except a thing she has not learned in China, using knife and fork, which she uses as lefthanded people would. 

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10 years 47 weeks ago
 
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