{"id":76116,"date":"2026-01-28T13:22:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/28\/viral-crying-horse-toy-china"},"modified":"2026-01-28T13:22:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:22:02","slug":"stable-genius-how-a-defective-crying-horse-toy-went-viral-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76116","title":{"rendered":"Stable genius? How a defective \u2018crying horse\u2019 toy went viral in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Toy becomes a popular symbol of workplace fatigue after manufacturing error gave it a frown instead of a smile<\/p>\n<p>On 17 February China will celebrate the start of the year of the horse, the zodiac sign symbolising high energy and hard work. But the runaway success of a defective stuffed toy suggests that many Chinese are not feeling the vibe.<\/p>\n<p>A red horse toy produced by Happy Sister in the city of Yiwu in the west of China was meant to wear a broad grin, but a factory error meant it hit the shops sporting a despairing grimace. Because the smile was placed upside down, the horse\u2019s nostrils could be interpreted as tears.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/28\/viral-crying-horse-toy-china\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toy becomes a popular symbol of workplace fatigue after manufacturing error gave it a frown instead of a smileOn 17 February China will celebrate the start of the year of the horse, the zodiac sign symbolising high energy and hard work. But the runaway&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76117,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76116\/revisions\/76117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}