The Beatles arrive in Hong Kong

Q: What sort of journey did you have on the way up?

Paul McCartney: Very bad. Well, it wasn’t a bad journey, it was just so long, you know.

Q: Are you going to, whilst you’re here, take a look at some of the poverty that exists in Hong Kong?

John Lennon: Not if we can help it.

Paul: Yes, there’s a lot.

George Harrison: But we don’t have time, anyway. And we’d probably be stuck in the hotel.

Paul: We’d go and see the good bits, you know. They’re capitalists.

Q: Why did you choose to come to Hong Kong before Manila and Japan?

John: Well, nobody asked me to go to Manila and Japan. Did they ask you?

George and Paul: No.

John: Where is Manila?

John: Well, how am I to know where they are?

George: It’s just down…

Paul: It’s just as popular as Hong Kong.

John: Is it?

George (to John): It’s just hanging off the bottom.

John: Oh, that one.

Paul: We’re not very good at geography.

Q: Are you going to do any shopping while you’re in Hong Kong?

John and Paul: Yes.

Q: What were you feeling when, after your big success in the States, that an old-timer like Louie Armstrong finally displaced you at number one with Hi Dolly?

Paul: Well, when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. And we might as well go with Louie Armstrong as anyone else, mightn’t you. He’s a good lad.

Q: Are you thinking of recording Hi Dolly?

All: It’s called Hello Dolly.

Q: Well, Hello Dolly. It doesn’t make any difference.

John: It does, you know…

Paul: I’ll bet you didn’t buy it.

John: …to the fellow that wrote it. You make a lot of money, you know.

Paul: No, we don’t want to sing it.

John: No, we don’t record it, no. It’s jazz.

Q: How would you judge your reception at Kai Tak Airport as compared with the reception you’ve received when visiting other countries?

George: It’s been great.

John: A good comparison.

George: Yeah, it was very good.

Q: Was it quieter?

George: No, it was about the same as we’ve had recently at other airports.

Q: George, they tell me that you arrived in London the other day and only two people turned up.

John: Three!

Paul: Five. Five.

Q: It was the Daily Express and, you know, you can’t believe them. What happened?

Paul: They were all round Ringo’s bed.

Q: When you’re standing on a stage, and you look down and see a crowd of screaming teenagers, what do you say to yourself?

John: ‘Look at them, all screaming.’

Paul: It’s the same feeling as footballers must get when they come out onto a football field. It’s a marvellous feeling inside, you know. And it’s the same every time.

John: Ask Jimmie ’cause it’s new for him.

Q: Don’t you sometimes get irritated because you can’t make yourselves heard above the screams?

Paul: No. Actually, you get irritated when the screams go down a bit.