Do you know that the Octopus card of Hong
Kong is the one of the first electronic money in the world? Uh, no… It has
nothing to do with octopus.
Lame joke aside, it is called “Octopus”
card because an octopus has eight tentacles, and the number eight matches the
Chinese name “八”達通(literally
eight-arrived pass), which is actually from the Chinese proverb “四通八達” (reachable from any direction). And “to reach everywhere, and can
be reached from anywhere” is more or less what to Octopus card was designed
for.
It was first launched in 1997 as an
alternative method to pay for the trains’ fare (pay for the train and you can
go anywhere, see where the name comes from?) in Hong Kong. Seeing the success,
the card company later expanded its usage so that it can be used for payment in
stores, supermarkets, restaurants, car parks and even for vending machines.
It does have its security problems and
scandals about selling its user’s personal data, though. So even though it does
“make our everyday lives easier” as the company suggested, there are still
issues that we can’t overlook. I guess everything has it upside and downside?
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