None of my Luxembourg cards went through the taxi driver’s device in the middle of Seoul.
The power of women
None of my Luxembourg cards went through the taxi driver’s device in the middle of Seoul.
I know it was nine thousand kilometers. That it took me about 13 hours by plane to get to the other side of the world. That the taxi driver did not understand anything from what I said. That I did not understand anything from what he told me. But all I had to do was stop at the door of my destination, a hotel, on one of Seoul’s many avenues, and turn around to realize it was time to pay the bill for I don’t know how many thousand Koreans had won. Instinctively, I opened my wallet and proudly pulled out my Luxembourg bank card. Turning away, the taxi driver quickly handed me a small white car that looked like something from the Cosmos 1999 TV series. And so he handed over the card. From the first try. Anything. It must be a small device, I thought. I renewed the card again. And he went back there, trying to get through it. Anything. Let’s try with the second Luxembourg card. After two more attempts, nothing. And the gentleman at the entrance to the hotel where I was, opened the taxi door for me. And the taxi driver looks at me suspiciously. And I imagined myself already being interrogated by the South Korean police, detained at a police station on the other side of the world because I couldn’t pay the bill. When… I remembered my Portuguese bank card, which I hardly use. Without much hope that it would work, I handed it over to the taxi driver. And to my surprise… it worked!
This is one of the mysteries that has tormented me for a long time. Why does the richest country in the world, which ranks second in terms of investment funds in the world, have such an archaic system of bank cards, compared to the Portuguese system. Because ATMs in Luxembourg can withdraw money and nothing else. While Portuguese ATMs only need to cook….they can pay bills, transfer money, charge mobile phones, buy train tickets and even pay tax debts.
As for South Korea, where I went with the Economic Mission led by the Crown Grand Duke, I keep the memory of a high-tech city full of Christmas lights that never stops. Where historic buildings sit side by side with skyscraper architecture of the future, in the world’s fourth largest metropolitan area with a population of over ten million people. Friendly, delicate people who do everything to guide us. It was 72 hours in the eastern lands, full of surprises and some disrespect for journalists from the local authorities. At the last moment, journalists were canceled at the Korean Space Forum, where the Korean president was present.
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