Taiwan "Fulu monkey" lantern criticized as "ugly"

An image of the FuluMonkey released by the organizer of "2016 Taipei Lights Festival" on the web. (Source: Chinadaily.com.cn)

Taipei city of Taiwan recently released an image of the main attraction of "2016 Taipei Lights Festival", the FuluMonkey, which literally means a monkey who brings blessings and good fortune. The image immediately drew criticism from Taiwan netizens for its ugliness, United Daily News reported.

The Chinese lunar calendar assigns an animal symbol to each year in a 12-year cycle. According to the zodiac, 2016 is the Year of the Monkey.

A netizen named Renzhawenben said, "Since there is no time to design a new one, we can keep it and call it baboon instead of FuluMonkey, and then change the festival name into '2016 Taipei Baboon Lights Carnival'."

Another netizen questioned its cucurbit shape and simple design by saying, "If they change its face every year, it can be reused for 12 years."

Some others compared it with the Spring Festival Gala mascot, a red and green colored monkey, which was also criticized when it was released a few days ago. "Sorry, I should not have laughed at the mainland monkey mascot last week," said a netizen.

Lin Shumin, the designer of FuluMonkey said that the image circulated to the public is of a smaller model, while the real one is 14.2 meters tall and presents different lighting effects at night.