A NEW import from the West is arriving in Asia. Bearded hipsters. These posers create a poser. Beards here? Why? Surely facial hair in humidity means stubble trouble.

First, a brief history of the Hong Kong hipster. Local hipster hair goes upwards, held in place by industrial-strength gel. The sides of the head are shaved. It’s an admirable strategy: men gain the illusion of inches, the gel fends off frizz and the hair is kept off the Hong Kong hipster’s face and neck.

In design, it’s a faultless coiffure. It’s like there was a Hong Kong hipster committee, and this was the final draft for hair.

Against which hairiness awareness, unnecessary facial hair seems rash, and is likely to cause one. The Hong Kong Observatory reported temperatures hit 29 degrees here this week, with bad air pollution. No analysis of this data comes up with the answer: mutton chops rocks.

Beards, hitherto, didn’t happen much in Hong Kong. One possible reason is genetic. Veet doesn’t target this part of the world: extrapolate that from women’s legs to men’s chins and you understand the rarity.

But now, definite beards. Not everyone. Not even one in 10. But enough to be noted, and more than enough to prompt an appraisal of this sudden flirtin’ with a chin curtain.

Thus far the bearded hipsters are mostly European or American, which is interesting. That means beards can go either way. One scenario: the beard-wearers are just visitors, a demographic blip, who will fly away and leave no trace except a curly hair or two. Hong Kong hipsters may covertly check out these passing beards, but they go home, look in the mirror and stroke their chins, an action which accompanies great thoughts. Like “beards are weird” and “ah, my chin, so smooth, so cool”.

Or, another possible future is that admiration of Western brands wins out over common sense. That the beard, as a hipster brand, picks up local fans who persevere to grow one against their genes. Grooming products emerge: “frizz-free goatee serum”. A new term is coined for when it’s really humid: “bad beard day”. Too late will Asian bearded hipsters realise that beards are a hair balaclava, offering year-round extra heat. Great in London’s Shoreditch or New York’s Williamsburg, but a really bad plan in Hong Kong. Yet by then, beards will be the latest thing in hair flair, and to go back to gel and a coaxed skyward look will be dated, the man equivalent of the Rachel.

As to why this is happening: I have a theory. Hong Kong is promoting itself as a start-up hub and an entrepreneurial sanctum. The investment visa required to be based here – is it really a hipster visa?

And might all this augur the globalisation of hipsters? Could, for example, the Hong Kong hipster look be exported to Scotland? The answer to that: nah. A gelled-up high hairdo would be knocked over by gale-force winds, and it wouldn’t fit under a hood. And if Scots guys were to shave the sides of their head, in summer that’s going to freckle.

Nonetheless, it makes me realise that hipsters develop according to environment. Fair to say they’ve got a lot up top, just distributed differently.