On 7 December 2013 an IKEA toy wolf like this one became an object of political dissent. It was thrown at CY Leung, Hong Kong’s most senior political official, in an act of anti-government protest. Within days the wolf sold out in Hong Kong’s three IKEA stores and ran low in Taiwan and mainland China. A Facebook page sprang up and prominent public figures shared photos of themselves holding Lufsig via social media.

Leung is known by his opponents as ‘the wolf’ because his name is similar to the Chinese character for wolf and because he is accused of favouring mainland Chinese interests over those of the former principality of Hong Kong. When translated into Mandarin Chinese, the name Lufsig is innocuous, but when pronounced in Cantonese (the main language of Hong Kong), the toy’s name sounds like a profane term for female genitalia.

This is a soft toy wolf manufactured by Swedish furniture company IKEA and sold across their stores worldwide became a material thing that came to stand as evidence of the political discontent of a restive Hong Kong populace at a given moment in time.

By 11 December 2013, IKEA had announced that it regretted giving the toy an unfortunate name and adjusted it on its website. Nevertheless, the association has remained and when stocks were replenished on 29 January 2014, the 2000 available Lufsig toys were sold within hours to customers who had formed ticketed queues.