I scribbled words across my notebook and then suddenly, a new friend I just met at Baruch blurted out in surprise, “YOU’RE A LEFTY?!”
So I’m a lefty. I did my research and apparently I am not the 99% but instead I am the 10%. Give or take. Being a lefty isn’t really a big deal but as I think back on it, my left handedness was an issue that definitely irked my grandpa. My grandpa was a man who grew up with the Chinese mindset that the correct hand to use was the right hand. At the dinner table, he would stare me down until I remembered that he wanted me to move my spoon to my right hand.
As a child, I never fully understood why being left handed was wrong. In school, my friend wrote with his right hand but did everything else with his left hand. He told me that when he was younger, his grandma forced him to make the switch when it came to writing. This sounded awkwardly familiar and then I remembered my failure to convert to being a righty.
That night, I did some research and found out that the left hand is considered dirty and evil. Various cultures associate the left hand with demons, the devil, and bad luck. It was also just annoying for people since the world is a right handed world. Many times I’d end up poking a family member with a chopstick because our arms fought for table space.
But with all the negative stuff thrown aside, being a lefty is also considered quite good. Apparently some people say that being left handed has ties to increase intelligence and creativity. That’s because the left hand is controlled with the right side of the brain which is known for creativity and languages. So even though I’m not using my right hand, I’m definitely in my right mind.
I like the way you ended it – “right mind”. You shared an interesting culture, and it indeed affects us all. I’m glad you mentioned the difficulties of eating at the dinner table. I loathe eating next to my left-handed cousin at a small table. We bump elbows almost every 3 minutes. But other than that, I feel like left handed people mirror us, right handed people, and of course vice versa, which makes sense how you saw this as a cultural encounter.
It turns out that I am also “the 10%” that is left handed! Similar to your research, I also have also heard of “the demonic nature” of being left handed. My great grandmother told me as a child, she began writing with her left hand. Her parents would not allow her to write with her left hand. To break her “bad” habit, her left hand was tied behind her back when she wrote, so it forced her to become a righty. In my own experiences, the majority of left-handed people I met have been rather intelligent. While being left handed was previously looked down upon, I am proud to say that I am part of the unique 10% of the population.
I find myself thinking, “Oh, he’s a lefty!” whenever I see someone writing with his or her left hand. It felt almost like a rare spectacle to me because I find it extremely difficult to write with my left hand (I tried to be ambidextrous :P). I have been conscious of the things I do with my hands: I write with my right, open bottle caps and other things with my left (I can’t seem to draw strength from my right on those matters), cut with my right, and type predominantly with my left (I can type faster with only my left hand than my right). It’s a really fun topic to discuss and there’s always discords between what people can do with their right and left hands. I’m sure everyone does something with their left hand most of the time even though they’re a righty, and vise versa.
One more interesting detail on superstition of being left handed… I still remembered my English teacher in Middle School telling me about something she read from an article (she was American), “if you’re a left-handed person, it means you’ll most likely live 10 years less than an average right-handed person.”
Like Nancy, I also really liked how you ended your post, it was very creative! I guess your left-handedness really does help you think a little creatively. Being left-handed isn’t rare but similarly to Gen, my first reaction when I see someone writing with their left hand is, “They’re a lefty?!” When I first started learning to write, I wrote with my left hand. My parents, not as strict as others, didn’t force me to write with my right hand. However, when I saw them teaching me how to write the letters, I noticed that they were using the hand opposite of mine. I felt a little strange and started using my right hand from them on. That’s probably why I’m a righty today!
I am in the same 10% as you are! I as well find my lefty skills to be amazing. No one else in my family is a lefty.
I heard the disdain for left-handed people went back many of years to the Feudal system. Whenever someone would make an agreement, they would shake with their dominant hands (right-handed) and would have their weapon in their left handed. With lefties, their non-dominant hand was the one they would shake with and would control the weapon with their left hand. They weren’t trusted because a lefty could kill the other party in an agreement.
It is very silly, but the influence is widespread. No one says my “left-hand man”. They say “right-hand man”.
I enjoyed your piece, but I like how you didn’t mention of the lefty plan to take over the world and convert all of the right-handed people…oops!
Back when I used to live in India, kids who tried to write with their left hands were often hit on that hand with a ruler. Writing with your left hand was considered a weakness, according to my first grade teacher. My friends and I (who are all righties) used to laugh at the kids getting made fun of for being lefty, but now when I think back to it, it just doesn’t make sense. Why should someone write with a certain hand, if what they are writing is just as good, if not better than what you are writing?