The Grand Bauhinia Medal (Chinese: 大紫荊勳章) the highest award under the Hong Kong honours and awards system, is to recognise the selected person's lifelong and highly significant contribution to the well-being of Hong Kong. The awardee is entitled to the postnominal letters GBM and the style "The Honorable". (Bauhinia, Bauhinia blakeana, is the floral emblem of Hong Kong.) It is created in 1997 to replace the British honours system after the transfer of sovereignty to People's Republic of China and the establishment of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Famous quotes containing the word grand:
“One of my playmates, who was apprenticed to a printer, and was somewhat of a wag, asked his master one afternoon if he might go a-fishing, and his master consented. He was gone three months. When he came back, he said that he had been to the Grand Banks, and went to setting type again as if only an afternoon had intervened.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)