Simon Yam, 65, Grew Out His Beard; Looks Like Santa Claus Now

Cantopop star Alan Tam may be starting to have a knack for sharing photos of his famous friends that get the internet buzzing about how different they look. Remember what happened with martial arts legend Sammo Hung?

Last Friday (Dec 18), Alan posted a few pics of himself hanging out with Hongkong actor Simon Yam, whose, um, more mature new look got a lot of netizens talking.

1/5

1/5

Did he continue to embrace No-Shave November to look like Santa in time for Christmas?
2/5

2/5

A closer look at his new whiskers

After decades of appearing clean-shaven in the public eye, Simon now sports a greying beard that, according to netizens at least, makes him unrecognisable and seem much older than his 65 years. In fact, some remarked that Alan, who is (an unbelievable) 70, looks younger than Simon in the shots.
Bewildered comments include: “Is Simon already that old?”, “Why does he look so different from the impression I have of him in my mind?”, “It turns out that growing a beard can make you look much older”, “I only knew it was Simon after reading the comments”, and “I wanted to ask who that cool old man with Alan is”.
Some media outlets even went the age-shaming route and described Simon as looking “tired” and “having a lot more wrinkles”.
3/5

3/5

Are they just being dramatic, though?
4/5

4/5

Simon looking clean-shaven when he was in Singapore for the Star Search finals last year

On the other hand, there were those who pointed out that all Simon needs to do is get rid of his facial hair and he’ll revert to his sprightly, younger-looking self again. Or he could always take a page from former actor Roy Cheung’s book and go full badass bearded silver fox.
5/5

5/5

Then again, we think we prefer his classic style

Photos: Alan Tam/Weibo, TPG, Carina Lau/Weibo