SHANGHAI, Jan 31 — It started with a simple production error — a mouth stitched the wrong way round — and ended with a factory worker in Yiwu, China, being promised 12 years’ worth of ang pow.

The now-famous “cry-cry horse” plushie had been designed as a cheerful mascot for the coming Year of the Horse. 

But on the assembly line in Zhejiang province, a worker named Bao accidentally sewed its smile upside down, giving the toy a deeply unimpressed pout. 

Factory owner Zhang Huoqing later explained, “It was simply a worker’s mistake — the mouth was sewn upside down.”

The flawed toy might have gone unnoticed if not for a woman in Hangzhou who requested a replacement and posted photos of its miserable expression online. 

Within hours, China had a new mascot: a small, gloomy horse whose mood matched the inner lives of overworked young adults. 

By January 11, the hashtag #YiwuCryCry-HorseGoneViral had racked up around 100 million views on Weibo.

Office workers seized on the plushie as a kind of emotional stand-in — a symbol of what’s known as the “cattle-and-horse” mindset, shorthand for shouldering endless pressure while trying to stay composed. 

“It’s a true depiction of the ‘cattle-and-horse’ mindset,” one netizen wrote. 

Another added, “It’s quite adorable and looks really stubborn. For the Year of the Horse, let’s make it a determined and hardworking one.”

Professor Wang Bin of Renmin University told China Daily its popularity tapped into a broader wave of social fatigue. 

“Everyone feels exhausted and faces many uncertainties about the future,” he noted.

Yiwu’s famously agile manufacturing ecosystem responded at speed.

The factory expanded from two to more than 10 assembly lines, retraining workers to recreate the exact pout Bao had accidentally created. Prices were kept low at 25 yuan (RM14), even as demand soared.

In true internet-fashion, the identity of the original artisan remained unknown — until Zhang appeared in Xiaohongshu videos handing Bao a “red packet of gratitude”. 

She promised him annual bonuses of 8,888 yuan until the next Year of the Horse, an extraordinary reward for a mistake that turned into a national phenomenon.

As the plushie continues to spread across China, its staying power may depend less on zodiac symbolism than on the very human feeling it captures: that sometimes, the things that go wrong reflect us more honestly than the things that go right.