Gansu Museum's goofy 'green horse' plush turns a national treasure into a sold-out meme

Gansu Provincial Museum owns the Bronze Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow (铜奔马), an Eastern Han relic so famous it is China's tourism logo — yet it mostly lived in textbooks and display cases. The museum's cultural-creative team wanted products young visitors would photograph, share and genuinely want, rather than scholarly reproductions.

Exaggerate the relic's goofy grin into an 'ugly-cute' plush twin — a 2,000-year-old bronze becomes a shareable mascot, not a glass-case icon.

A roughly 40-person design team, most of them in their twenties, started the 'Shenma laile' (神马来了, 'the god horse is coming') IP with chat stickers in 2020, then in June 2022 released plush toys that exaggerated the horse's face into a wide, silly grin. Two poses were made — standing 'Yima Dangxian' (一马当先) and running 'Madao Chenggong' (马到成功) — with an innocent swallow beneath the hooves; the 'green horse' (绿马) name also echoed the pandemic-era 'green health code', and Douyin clips of the toy exploded over a late-June weekend.

The first production run of 3,000 sold out within days of the mid-June launch; the museum's official Taobao store climbed to No. 1 on both its popularity-collection and sales charts, and by 29 June 2022 monthly online sales had passed 10,000 with 12,676 buyers and pre-orders of 20–25 days. Team head Cui Youxin told Global Times that more than 100,000 plushies sold in the first three months, summer visitor numbers to the museum almost doubled, and the toy repeatedly trended on Douyin and Weibo.

Gansu Provincial Museum's greatest treasure is the Bronze Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow, an Eastern Han work that doubles as China's official tourism logo. But for most visitors the relic was a distant, textbook-perfect icon. The museum's cultural-creative team set out to close that distance with products young people would want to own — and decided the way in was the horse's face.

Looking at the bronze from the front, the horse appears to wear a slightly goofy, open-mouthed expression, and the design team leaned into it. Working under the 'Shenma laile' (the god horse is coming) IP created in 2020, the team released plush toys in June 2022 with the grin exaggerated into an 'ugly-cute' cartoon face — a standing pose named Yima Dangxian (leading the pack) and a running pose named Madao Chenggong (instant success), each trampling an innocent swallow. A team of about forty, mostly in their twenties, shaped a toy that felt like a meme rather than a museum replica.

The timing amplified the idea: the toy's nickname 'green horse' (绿马) sounds like the COVID-era 'green health code', giving it a second layer of meaning, and visitor-shot clips on Douyin spread during a late-June weekend. The first batch of only 3,000 units sold out almost immediately, the museum's official Taobao store hit No. 1 on its popularity and sales charts, and pre-orders stretched to roughly three weeks.

What began as a cautious test became a phenomenon: monthly online sales passed 10,000 by 29 June, and the team head reported that more than 100,000 plushies were sold in the first three months, with summer visitors to the museum almost doubling. Museums elsewhere had made relics cute before, but Gansu's version proved that embracing a national treasure's funny side could turn heritage into a product people actively hunted for.

The design used the relic's real quirk — its front-on goofy expression — instead of inventing cuteness, so the toy felt authentic rather than arbitrary.

Naming the poses after lucky idioms gave buyers a blessing to gift, turning a toy into an occasion-based purchase.

The 'green horse' / 'green health code' homophone made the toy feel timely and gave social-media users an extra layer of meaning to share.

Keeping the first run small at 3,000 units created scarcity that turned a museum souvenir into a hunted collectible.

The toy was designed to be photographed, so every owner became a channel — the product itself generated the viral spread.

Treat the artifact's awkward detail as the brand: exaggerating one funny expression made a 2,000-year-old relic feel like a friend, and the product's shareability did the museum's marketing for it.

Gansu Provincial Museum quickly extended the line: keychains and smaller plush variants entered development, and the bronze-horse family grew to masks, headpieces, kites, brooches, bookmarks, folding fans and a brick-building set. Cui Youxin told Global Times the craze lifted the museum's social following and summer visits, with nearby hotels booked out. The 'ugly-cute relic' approach became a reference point for Chinese museum merchandising, and the green horse stayed a permanent part of the 'Shenma laile' product family after its viral summer.