YIWU (China): At Yiwu International Trade City, China’s largest wholesale market, shoppers have been hunting for a most unlikely bestseller – a red plush horse with a downturned mouth, bashful eyes, and a gold bell hanging from its neck.
Online, it has been christened the “crying horse”, and its popularity has galloped far beyond expectations. As this Lunar New Year ushers in the Year of the Horse, Chinese social media has collectively decided that this particular equine perfectly captures the current mood.
The twist? The toy was never designed to look sad.
According to Zhang Huoqing, owner of the Yiwu-based shop Happy Sister, the plushie was originally meant to be a cheerful New Year decoration. But during production, a worker accidentally sewed the mouth on upside down, turning a festive smile into a permanent pout.
Zhang said she initially offered a refund to her customers when she noticed the mistake. The customers never came back. What did return, however, was the horse itself – in photo after photo circulating online.
“I realised people found it funny,” Zhang said. “They said it looked like them.”
Too real for the office
As the crying horse spread across platforms like Weibo, internet users began projecting their own feelings onto it, and jokes quickly followed.
“The crying horse is how you look at work,” one popular post reads. “The smiling horse is how you look after work.”
Young white-collar workers, in particular, have embraced the toy. Its drooping mouth and weary eyes seemed to mirror long hours, tight deadlines, and the general exhaustion of modern working life.
In a sea of relentlessly cheerful decorations, the crying horse felt refreshingly honest. So, instead of fixing the mistake, Zhang leaned into it.
“We decided to keep making the sad one,” she said. “This crying horse really fits the reality of modern working people.”
Demand took off almost immediately: Yiwu vendors say daily orders jumped from a few hundred pieces to as many as 15,000 a day, with factories adding extra production lines to keep up.
By early afternoon, racks of crying horses outside Happy Sister often sell out. Staff can be seen restocking shelves at speed, while customers ask the same question over and over again: “Do you still have the crying one?”
“This is something special,” said Lou Zhenxian, a vendor who has sold festive toys for more than 25 years. “Almost everyone who walks in asks for it.”
The horse has also attracted overseas buyers, with orders coming in from Southeast Asia, Russia, and even South Africa. Online, some users have gone a step further, attaching meaning to the mistake itself.
One popular comment referenced an old Chinese saying about a lost horse bringing unexpected fortune, suggesting the upside-down mouth was a lucky accident. Others simply said the toy made them feel seen.
Furthermore, the horse fits neatly into the growing trend for “ugly-cute” collectibles, where personality matters more than perfection. Characters with odd proportions, grumpy faces or awkward expressions have become increasingly popular, proving that cuteness does not have to be flawless.
In a way, the crying horse is a perfect Lunar New Year mascot for the times: not overly cheerful, slightly tired, but still oddly comforting.
As Zhang put it, smiling: “Sometimes the things that aren’t perfect are the ones people love the most.”