‘The left hand is the devil’s hand’: how Shih-Ching Tsou turned childhood trauma into extraordinary drama

<p>When her grandfather warned her not to use her left hand, the director was shocked. Now she’s made an acclaimed film taking aim at this Taiwanese superstition</p><p>The teenage Shih-Ching Tsou was at home in Taipei cooking a meal one day when she picked up a knife with her left hand. “My grandfather told me the left hand is the devil’s hand. He said: ‘You should not use that.’” Up until then, the Taiwanese-American film-maker hadn’t even realised she was left-handed. “I was already ‘corrected’, probably in kindergarten, by the teacher.”</p><p>That conversation – and the lingering sense of shame – stayed with her, Tsou says. She spoke to her mother about it. “She told me she was left-handed too and got corrected” – forced to use her right hand – “because at the time, they said you had to do the same as other people.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/04/shih-ching-tsou-left-handed-girl-sean-baker">Continue reading...</a>