A buyer uses their hand to estimate the size of a "crying horse" plush toy, Jan. 11, 2026, in Yiwu, Zhejiang, China. Dong Yixin/China News Service/VCG via Getty

Do not turn that frown upside down. A horse plush toy has gone viral in China thanks to a serendipitous mistake by a factory worker.

The mouths on a batch of the toys were mistakenly sewn on the wrong way around, creating a small army of sad-faced "crying" toys that have captured hearts as a mascot for the Lunar New Year.

The horses were designed as happy-faced toys to mark the upcoming holiday on February 17, the start of the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac.

A customer who received the defective product decided to keep it, posted about it online, and from there, the "crying horse" found fame.

The "crying horse" hashtag had been used on Douyin, China's domestic version of TikTok, more than 200 million times by Wednesday, and garnered more than 100 million views as a trending topic on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

The horse's forlorn expression appears to have resonated with Chinese social media users, who've been bringing the plush toy to work and school to express discontent with a relentless work culture.

The toy is red, an auspicious color in Chinese culture, and its body is decorated with a golden embroidery wishing owners to "get rich quickly." One of the toys costs 25 Chinese yuan, or about $4, according to Chinese media reports.

The toy is available in both the frowning, and the original smiling version, and many people have taken to buying them as a pair.

"People joked that the crying horse is how you look at work, while the smiling one is how you look after work," Zhang Huoqing, the store owner who first sold the toy, told the Reuters news agency. Zhang's store is located in Yiwu, home to China's largest wholesale market for small commodities.

Since it took off online, customers from South Africa, Spain, Russia and South America have visited the store to buy the popular, if accidental hit toy, Zhang has told Chinese media. Both domestic and overseas demand has required her to add over 10 production lines and create around 20,000 units a day, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

"The crying horse's expression shows feelings of injustice, defiance and stubbornness that reflect the true feelings of most working 'niu ma' today," commented a Sichuan-based Weibo user, using a term meaning "ox and horse" that references people who are overworked in their jobs. "And it looks quite cute, which is why it has created such an explosive reaction."


A woman holds a happy horse toy and a "crying horse" toy, the latter of which went viral after a factory production mistake, ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year of the Horse, which begins on Feb. 17, at the Yiwu wholesale market in Yiwu, eastern China's Zhejiang province, Feb. 4, 2026. Jade GAO/AFP/Getty

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