As China prepares for the Year of the Horse, an unexpected manufacturing mishap has turned an ordinary stuffed toy into an online phenomenon, according to a report cited by Cybernews.
The plush horse was originally designed to feature a cheerful smile. Instead, due to a simple production error, its mouth was sewn upside down, giving it a distinctly sulky and tearful expression. The unintended look quickly captured public attention, with netizens nicknaming it the “crying horse” and the “accidental edition.”
What would normally have been an unremarkable quality-control mistake has since gone viral, amassing more than 100 million views on the social media platform Sina Weibo. The toy’s original buyer, based in Hangzhou, contacted the manufacturer’s customer service team to request a replacement and shared photos of the flawed horse online—unknowingly igniting a social media craze.
Factory owner Zhang Huoqing attempted to play down the incident, explaining to local media that it was “simply a worker’s mistake,” caused by the mouth being stitched the wrong way around.
The sudden popularity of the plush has drawn attention to Yiwu, China’s well-known hub for small commodity manufacturing, where demand for the so-called “accidental edition” is now surging. One commenter described the toy as a “cyber mouthpiece,” reflecting a deeper cultural resonance.
The phrase points to the social expectation in China of maintaining composure and suppressing emotion, particularly under intense and exhausting working conditions common in large cities. This sentiment aligns with broader discussions around the “996” work culture—working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—which has increasingly been associated with burnout among white-collar workers both in China and abroad.
In Chinese slang, the term niú mǎ—literally meaning “cattle and horse”—is often used as a self-deprecating metaphor for being overworked. For many, the downturned expression of the plush horse has come to symbolize this shared sense of exhaustion, turning a minor production error into an unexpected cultural symbol.
