Too Far East, Hong Kong’s beloved men’s grooming space, is busy all year-round, but the shop’s cofounder Mr Kelvin Yu says the festive season might just take the cake. “In the two weeks leading up to Christmas, the shop is pretty much slammed,” he says. Not that it’s a bad thing. “The energy is very high. We have six chairs in the shop and, in December, those six chairs are constantly running. The energy is very, very nice. Everyone is excited and talking about their holiday plans, and those festive vibes definitely start to rub off.”

One of the ways those vibes have rubbed off on Yu and his Too Far East cofounder Mr Benny Kwok is through their festive team dinner – an annual tradition since the shop’s first holiday season together, back in 2019.

That first year, there were just three of them, now there are eight: Yu and Kwok plus barbers Messrs Miles Yip, Karol Kozlowski, Malone Fong, Louis Chu, Zippo Tong and Dickson Tang. Yu considers them family. “I see the guys at work more than I see my friends,” he says. “I’m pretty sure that goes the same for all of us – 100 per cent, I see them as like my little brothers.”

The crew’s annual dinner strategically takes place on a Saturday night in mid-December – with the shop closed on Sundays, it ensures a well-deserved chance to relax and loosen up.

“When it gets to Saturday evening and we’re done with work, we’re tired, we’re hungry, and some of us probably need haircuts,” Yu says. “We pretty much put all our time with our clients, so there’s not much time left over for ourselves to get groomed. So, our festive dinner is also a time to get your colleagues to freshen you up.

“What always happens is, someone gets a haircut at the shop by another barber and everyone ends up crowding around the chair. Being a barber, you can’t help but watch the haircut being done, especially when it’s someone you know giving the cut. We always crowd around with a beer in hand and watch the craftsmanship of the entire thing unfold. It’s a nice bonding experience for all of us.”

The evening’s traditions include picking up a tree from the city’s Flower Market. “Just so the shop has a little bit of piney scent that reminds you of the season,” Yu says.

Adding to the ambience are a few ornaments and some traditional holiday tunes. “We’re usually listening to some kind of lo-fi trance in the shop, so when it finally gets down to our dinner, you have to switch to some carols to complete the vibe.”

The guys order in a traditional turkey with all the trimmings and gather around the fold-up table they keep stored in the stairwell for their daily lunches in the shop. There are also some tipples such as Japanese highballs, mixed with local boxed drinks – “you know, the lemon teas and the soy milks” – taken from the barbers’ fridge stash.

The crew also has a Secret Santa, which Yu describes as “very, very silly”. Last year’s standout gift? “You know those electronic devices that have a camera that you put in your ear and it shows what’s in your ear so you can clean it? Someone got that last year and, after a few drinks, it started getting used.”

Too Far East is a uniquely tight-knit workplace underpinned by a strong brotherhood and playful camaraderie – an environment that is both a testament to Yu and Kwok’s warm leadership, and starkly different to Yu’s work environment eight years ago. Back then, aged 29, he was working in IT finance and, while successful, he wasn’t happy.

“The higher I moved up the corporate ladder, the more I kind of knew what my life was going to be about,” he says. “Recently married, I thought to myself, if I ever wanted a change in career, this is probably the time. You know, rather than a couple of years down the road with kids.”

Eventually, Yu built up the courage to start his own thing, or as he puts it, “swim or drown”.

“Haircuts mean a lot to me.” Yu was passionate about the art of Shanghainese barbering techniques. “Shanghainese barbers are fluent with a pair of clippers. If you go to a salon, they are really good with scissor work and all of that, but when it came to clipper work, it wasn’t what I was looking for in a barber’s cut.

“I was going to this old man who cut my hair for a number of years. The reason I went to him was because there were not any of these modern-day barbershops in Hong Kong like the ones that I used to go to when I lived in Canada. Back then, the only places that you could go to get something as close as possible to that were those old-school Shanghainese barbershops. So, one day I asked my barber if he could teach me.

“He was working at his own salon at that time, but was actually a second-generation Shanghainese barber. I believe he was 70 years old then. I had a really good relationship with him. He actually said yes, he would teach me what he can, and the rest you have to figure out yourself.”

Part of figuring it out was getting a job at another barber shop, where Yu found himself working side by side with Benny. The duo bonded over a mutual appreciation for old-school Shanghainese barbershops and the realisation that there was a void for them in Hong Kong, particularly when it came to a modern interpretation. After gaining the courage to go out on their own, the pair worked towards bringing their unique perspective to life.

“We didn’t want to do anything that people think a barbershop is supposed to look like,” Yu says. “We didn’t think that a barbershop had a particular definition in terms of decor and style. For example, if you walk into a barbershop, it doesn’t have to have a motorcycle on the side, or skateboards on the wall. It doesn’t have to have all these old-school vintage things, yellow dimmed lights. That wasn’t our vibe.”

As for what was? “Very clean, bright, white, tiled. A barbershop that suggests some sort of Eastern culture but also throws in all these Western influences. For example, as well as having a lot of Eastern influences, the music that we play is very modern and Western. The haircuts that we do can be very modern and Western, and the personalities that you have in the shop can also be very modern and Western. That’s the reason the shop’s called Too Far East – you travel too far east, you end up west.”

As the conversation turns back to holiday plans, Yu fondly recalls a memory from when he was in Canada years ago. “It was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing; I rear-ended someone in the car, and the guy just turned around and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Merry Christmas!’ That vibe was strong. And when someone gives you that kind of vibe, you tend to pass it on. So, I think the holidays are definitely a time when you have to spread positivity – whichever way you know how to spread it.

“It’s a time when you should be with your loved ones. It’s a time when you should surround yourself with people who make you smile. I think holiday spirit is super powerful.”