Hong Kong News

June 1964. Most reports say that the band played on 9 June, but there are collectors’ ticket stubs that clearly say 10 June. Whichever night it was, the band played two shows (the late show started at 9.30pm), to a crowd of around 1,700 people each time.

Princess Theatre on Nathan Road. The theatre was demolished in the 1970s and is the current location of The Mira hotel.

Up to $70 per ticket.

While there’s no official record of the set list, the band’s recent big hits are all likely to have featured – “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, “I Saw Her Standing There”, “All My Loving” and “She Loves You” – along with popular covers like “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Twist and Shout”.

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Who’s excited about seeing bands playing live in Hong Kong again? We are! In the meantime, here’s a look back at one of the highest profile concerts the city has witnessed – 56 years ago, when the Beatles visited during their world tour of 1964.

• It wasn’t so much the Fab Four as the Fab Three plus one. Ringo Starr was in a hospital in London recovering from tonsillitis. He would also miss the first show (in Adelaide) of the subsequent Australia tour.

• Neither of the Hong Kong shows was sold out because the ticket price was too expensive for the band’s main fan base – teenagers. It’s said to be the only concert in the band’s history where the promoter lost money! Military serviceman made up a big proportion of the crowd; Paul McCartney would later recall that it was mostly a “khaki audience”.

• Despite this report, some fans who attended recall the concert as having the typical throngs of screaming fans – to the point where the music was mostly drowned out.

• The Beatles’ Hong Kong tour is said to have prompted a demand for more rock and roll records and shows, with the likes of The Carpenters and Herman’s Hermits also touring in the 1960s. The Rolling Stones dragged the chain: they didn’t play in HK until 2003.

#1

This particular bauhinia was “discovered” in 1880 by a Catholic missionary from France. It was found in the vicinity of a ruined house in Pok Fu Lam – perhaps close to the historic Béthanie building.

The “Hong Kong orchard”, a type of bauhinia, was chosen as the territory’s emblem in 1965. Here are some other trivia titbits about the famous flower.

#2

It didn’t get its modern name, Bauhinia blakeana, until 1908, when the superintendent of the Botanical and Forestry Department named it after a pair of 17th-century French botanists, Gaspard and Jean Bauhin, and after Sir Henry Blake, British Governor of Hong Kong from 1898 to 1903, and his wife Lady Blake.

#3

The bauhinia blooms from early November to the end of March. Its fragrant flowers look a little like orchids; they grow to around 15 centimetres.

#4

Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai is home to a six-metre statue of the flower. The square was the location for Hong Kong’s “handover” ceremony in July 1997. According to some people, the monument is arguably more reminiscent of pak choy than a bauhinia!

#5

The flower can also be seen on the Hong Kong flag, which has been in use since 1997. While the petals in the flag are white, in real life they are pink. You’ll also find the bauhinia on coins and on the Hong Kong coat of arms.

#6

While it’s commonly referred to as the Hong Kong orchid, the bauhinia isn’t an orchid. It’s from the legume family, which includes peas and beans.

The year the escalator opened

Its approximate length, in metres

The change in elevation, in metres, from top to bottom

The number of steps you have to climb if you choose to walk beside the escalator instead of using it

Approximate number of CCTV cameras on the escalator

The number of days of filming that took place on the escalator in 1997 for the Batman film The Dark Knight (starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger)

The number of different sections to the escalator

Approximate daily usage (number of people) of the escalator in 2016

The cost to build the escalator – $140 million over budget

The travel time from top to bottom, in minutes, if you don’t do any extra walking on the escalator sections themselves

Also... In its early years of operation, the escalator was considered a

“white elephant”, as it didn’t seem to achieve the desired effect of alleviating the traffic problems in the area. Since then, however, its usage has grown to three times the original estimates, and it has helped to revitalise much of the urban area it passes through. The escalator is currently undergoing a major four-year renovation, which is expected to be finished by 2022.

We’ve all been on it – some of us use it every day; Hong Kong’s Central-Mid Levels Escalator is, according to the folks at Guinness World Records, the longest outdoor covered escalator system on the planet. Here are some other stats we uncovered about this unique walkway.