The stuffed toy wolf called Lufsig sold by Ikea was simply intended as a children’s toy – but since two protesters threw the toy at Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, it has become a protest symbol. Not only is Leung nicknamed the wolf, because of his perceived cunning, but as the South China Morning Post politely explains, its Chinese translation is a homonym for “an obscene three-word phrase in Cantonese associated with the female genitalia”.
“I was amazed by the serendipity of it all. It seemed like Lufsig was meant to be used as a tool of protest against Leung,” Yuen Chan, a journalism lecturer at the Chinese University in Hong Kong wrote in the Huffington Post. Ikea has now run out of stock for Lufsig – although when I checked eBay this lunchtime you could still buy him for around $20 online. The cuddly wolf also has over 45,000 likes on his newly created Facebook page.
Content from our partners
