Customers buying holiday decorations before Chinese New Year. Photo: Imaginechina / ddp USA / Profimedia
At Yiwu International Trade City, China's largest wholesale market, customers flock to a small shop in search of a product that is unexpectedly a big hit ahead of the Chinese New Year.
They look for a red stuffed horse with a mouth in a sad expression, a golden bell around its neck and eyes that seem to shy away from the viewer's gaze. The toy went viral on Chinese social media ahead of the Spring Festival holiday, which this year marks the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac.
Dubbed the “crying horse” by online users, the toy was designed as a Lunar New Year decoration with a happy face, but a manufacturing error turned its smile into a frown.
“A worker accidentally sewed the mouth upside down,” said Zhang Huoqing, owner of the Happy Sister store in Yiwu.
Zhang said he offered to refund the money after discovering the defect, but the customer did not return the toy. Not long after, she discovered photos of the toy circulating online.
“People used to joke that the crying horse is how you look at work, and the smiling horse is how you look after work,” Zhang said. As demand grew, Zhang decided to continue producing the sad-faced version.
Some young employees in China say that the horse's gloomy expression reflects long working hours and stress at work.
It's also part of a wider trend of so-called “ugly-cute” toys, popularized in recent years by characters like Pop Mart's toothy monster Labubu.
“Nowadays, almost everyone who walks in the door asks for the crying horse,” said Lou Zhenxian, a Yiwu vendor who has been selling holiday toys for more than 25 years.
By early afternoon, the shelves of crying horses outside Happy Sister's store were empty, and employees were scrambling to restock them.
“It's being sold on a conveyor belt,” Zhang said. “This crying horse perfectly fits the reality of the modern working man,” she added.
