Comments on: No Lefties in China?

By: Serbian Ambidextrous Dude

Serbian Ambidextrous Dude — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:27:59 +0000

I think that the Chinese snooker player Liang can be regarded as compelling evidence of the chinese repression of the left hand.
He plays using his left hand (I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take ONE shot with his right). However, when he signed an autograph, he used his right.

Even here, in Serbia, at an early age I was forced to write with my right hand. I don’t even remember it. But when I took up pool, I found that I could use my left hand to a very high degree. I was 20 at the time. I mentioned this to my dad, and he said ”Oh, yeah, we thought that you would be a lefty…”. Just like that…
I tried to write with my left hand, and after very little practice, I brought it up to the same level of dexterity as my right.
People shouldn’t try to play god with children’s genetics.

By: shane

shane — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:42:27 +0000

people with left handedness CAN be converted into right handedness and vice versa, as long as it is done early when the brain is still plastic enough and the child is still training to use their hands.

it is very acceptble in China to hit a child’s left hand if the child uses her left hand, such physical pain and condition is more effectively at forcing the child to develop right handedness, which subsequently influences the brain’s neuro structure.

since left handedness is being converted less often, the statistics indicate that left handedness is becoming more and more common.

By: joey

joey — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:39:46 +0000

It has to do with Chiarman Mao. During the time he ruled it was required that everyone be right handed, required to learn that way rather than left. Being left handed was a sign of antl-conmunlsm.

By: heidi

heidi — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:33:49 +0000

I wouldn’t be surprised if Chinese parents made an effort to convert their left-handed children, even outside of China. I was born in the U.S., and my brother tells me how I used to draw with my left hand, and how my mom would slap my hand when I did. I eventually learned to stick with my right, and now I’m completely right-handed.

By: FOARP

FOARP — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:46:07 +0000

As a kid on special needs, I often underwent physical examinations to see if there wasn’t some simple explanation for my rubbish hand writing. The first thing they would check was whether I was left handed or not, they would do this by getting me to squeeze something with both of my hands and try to feel the relative strength of each. The implication is obvious, handedness is natural and any attempt to turn it around leads to your child experiencing a disadvantage in school. There are Chinese lefties, it’s just that they write with their right hands.

By: leben

leben — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:22:36 +0000

One of my neighborhood ,he’s my best friend , is both-handed , I don’t think that is strange , actully I think being left-handed have advantage . They use the right brain . They can do better than the right handed .

By: Todd

Todd — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:48:27 +0000

Weird, my mother forced my sister and I to be right-handed. Although, nearly everthing she did not teach us we invariably do left handed. For instance, I shoot a gun, play pool, and throw a frisbee left handed. This explains all the left-handed ballers out there who are eating and writing with their right hands. I’m 34 so don’t fool yourselves into thinking the supression of the evil left-handed curse is not still very much alive and kicking.

On a side note, if you see a someone struggling between right and lefthanded activities check the cowlick on the top of his/her head. If it runs counterclockwise the chances that he/she is a southpaw are greater than 50%.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:57:12 +0000

A colleague used to claim that left-handedness is associated with a high statistical deviation, not over-achievement as such. So plenty of US Presidents may be left-handed, but it’s probable that plenty of street-cleaners are too.

No-one has so far mentioned the speech problems associated with forced conversion to right-hand writinged. It seems to confuse language areas of the brain. The categorical example is the UK is often the late King George VI, who suffered a lifelong speech impediment, obviously a major disadvantage in his role, because he was forced to use his right hand as a child.

I only have anecdotal evidence for both of these points, and they may be urban myths. There’s a link below to an article on the speech issue, but it’s not a very reliable source (I couldn’t find it on the actual National Post website).
http://www.bridges4kids.org/articles/8-03/CanadianNatlPost8-12-03.html

By: Gabrielle

Gabrielle — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:49:11 +0000

When I was in China, everyone was always super surprised to see my friend, Phil, use his left hand to eat and write. We asked them why it was so amazing to them, and that is when they told us that everyone one is taught to write with their right hand in school. Someone told me that it had something to do with smearing characters if they wrote with their left hand. I don’t know if that is true or not. It sorta makes sense even if it isn’t true.

And like Glen said, we too were told countless times that people who were left handed were very clever.

By: Minivet

Minivet — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:47:15 +0000

I’m told my (American) left-handed grandmother was allowed to be left-handed, but she wouldn’t have been if she were a year older, because that’s when her school made the change.