We often get messages from club members around the world telling us about their experiences and how left-handers are treated in their country. We were recently shown an article about how left-handedness is seen in Asian countries and how it is largely suppressed in a lot of places.
In South Korea, for instance, left-handedness has long been associated with impurity — giving or receiving items must be done with the right or both hands, never the left. One lady commented "When I have to write or sign something — a sales slip, for example, the proprietor hands me the pen with their right hand, as usual, and I accept with my right hand to be polite. They then watch in amazement as I switch hands, sign left-handed, switch hands again, and hand back the pen with my right".
While 5.8% in South Korea are left-handed, China has less than 1%. While one argument asserts that many Chinese characters require the use of the right hand, a 2013 study by Howard Kushner, professor at the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at Emory University, noted that this could be due to a combination of reasons.
“In China, we can see how a combination of traditional values and practical considerations seems to have merged to reduce both the actual and reported prevalence of left-handedness. When we add in the population of India, and much of the remaining Islamic world, we can conclude that for two-thirds of the world’s population, being born left-handed exposes one to discrimination and stigma.”
That's an awful lot of people having problems in their lives due to being born left-handed!
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I know that this world is geared for right handed people as i see this every day but to think it is associated with impurity and other things just disgust's me.
To reverse the problem, we could stigmatize the right-handed world for not being normal as we lefties are. The discrimination is ridiculous. Why can't we accept and embrace a person who is left-handed and not look at it as sinister? In my college days, I learnt to speak Japanese, a language written from right to LEFT. Made it much easier for me to learn Hebrew which is also written from right to LEFT. There are more important issues to focus on than handedness.
So many are different in race, colour, religion, whatever.
I just want to get on with life.
I am exeedingly proud of my lefthanded fountain pen, 6" ruler an my scissors, espec the pen.
John Clayden Torquay
in Sydney Australia, whenever writing or doing anything with my left hand nuns belted me daily with a cane until I submitted to using my right hand. After many wet pants and by now a damaged left thumb I now "use" my right hand.
My writing is still a bad scrawl.
Now in late years I have discovered that left-handedness is an inherited trait in my family - all first-born children, male and female, from my mother's side were all left handed. For good measure,in late adulthood,I have also been diagnosed as dsylexic and dsypraxic.
Unfortunately I was the only one caught in the nuns correction net.
I started school in the U.K. in 1968, and I had the unfortunate experience of being made to write with my right hand although I was quite obviously left handed, if I picked up my pencil with my left hand the teacher would hit my hand with a ruler, or hold my left hand behind my back. The repercussions of this were in fact quite severe as I developed a stammer, I would mirror write and had difficulty learning to read. My mother eventually realised what was happening and reported the teacher to the headmaster, he was astonished that this practice was still happening in 1968, obviously the teacher was severely reprimanded., during this time I developed a dislike of reading, and I hated school, I often wonder what I could have achieved if this hadn’t happened.
After I told her what this woman said to me, my mom flew into a rage and we were off to the school. Mom pulled the principal from his office and stormed into my classroom where the teacher was eating her lunch. When the woman repeated what she'd said, the principal told her to pack her things and wait for him in his office. The principal ended up serving as our teacher for the remainder of the day. This was the second incident in elementary school involving someone being upset that I'm left handed. I have one brother who's also left handed. My firstborn is also left handed.
When I studied Sanskrit, we were taught how to form the letters for both right-handed and left-handed students.
Interestingly, when I write Hebrew, I don't curl my hand; Hebrew is actually easier for left-handers than it is for right-handers. (Actually, I no longer need to curl my hand for any writing.)
About five years ago I watched the mother of a friend of mine (my friend being the manager of the local Chinese restaurant) eating with chopsticks in her left hand - and feeding her grandson with the chopsticks in her left hand! I knew it could be done!
That night I asked for a pair of chopsticks when I received my meal and with some guidance and a lot of effort ate the whole plate of food using only chopsticks - in my left hand. Having made this major accomplishment I went back to forks and knives, but now have the confidence that I can do it if the need arises.
Thus far I have not noticed other left-handed people of Chinese heritage.
That was on my early days after I arrived, Later I learned the meaning of the left hand in India...
China is in my view a good example for that shift, from holistic and with a wider view, see the undertsanding of 'Chi' from long time ago, turned into a non-solution-oriented but destructive mentality, see their killing of birds after a huge famine and all insect life in some regions, now having to fertilize fruit trees by hand thanks to such actions. Anyone with at least a minimum understanding of how life is connected can only shake his head.
For Europe, the shift in my eyes happened with the Romans, a mainly warring 'culture' which extracted all they are so much praised for from other civilizations while subdueing huge regions with sheer force - thanks to their war tactics which required reight-handedness so that the cohorts could form their battle tactics synchronizedly. The decadence, the brutality, the suppression and extreme chauvinism is historically well elaborated.
Today, it is the computers, periphal devices like printers, controllers etc, and smartphones which force us - and our kids - into right-handedness. Unnoted, unconsciously, nevertheless. As we look at our societies of the last decades: What exactly was newly invented? Not much, in fact. Almost everything which is seemingly innovative is simply built from concepts having existed before, only using the newer materials, more complex processes and more sophisticated yet basically always linear organisation. Nevertheless, 'specialists' are still being hyped - while often not much apt of seeing anything beyond their scope. And where do we move to right now? Into one human failure and disaster after the other.
Back to my point:
It is the use and synchronization of course of BOTH brain hemispheres which is i.m.o. fare more easy for lefties which allows culture and civilization to grow while having the whole system in mind.
Which is at the same time what gives lefties much trouble - already due to a far more complex way, non-dualistic of seeing the world - within a system which is more and more strictly made for righties.
Have a great day!
Then they will be writing from left to right easily AND many people may not even notice they are left-handed because they are not writing scrunched over. Luv, GG-B
True lefties have language dominance in the right hemisphere and that can be quickly determined in kindergarten using a speed test of foot writing under stress. No one ever taught pupils to write with their feet, so the writing foot is a spontaneous choice. Do not tell the student what the speed test is all about. Just tell the kids to stand upright balanced equally on both feet, then say, "As fast as you can, WRITE YOUR NAME ON THE FLOOR WITH YOUR FOOT! You want their interest to be entirely on speed. Some students may switch feet. Generally, the indication is clear in seeing who the true lefties are. For coordinated movements and sighting, it is important that the sighting eye also be the left eye in order to hit targets and quick aiming in sports and games. Cross dominance results in a lot of heartache connected with failure embarrassment and not understanding why.
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