ф(^o^) ?

So.
I'm studying Japanese, praise me and such.
Now there's an exercise in my book and it's probably the first one that's kind of related to real life, the others being "Michiko made Hiroshi come with her to buy clothes", yeah, as if, but anyway. The exercise is about Japanese emoticons, m( )m, (@_@), (^o^) etc. (btw, does anybody actually write the brackets?)
I can recognize them all except this one:
ф(^o^)
Is that supposed to be a fist? Like: ф(^o^)<(バンザイ!!)
Or did the author just snap after having to write 23 lessons of stupid teenagers going to Japan and not knowing how to read the clock?

Haaaa, Is the textbook Genki?
And they're common. I guess you don't need to 'learn' them because, well, they're supposed to be self explanitory being emoticons in all.

And the ф is a pen. I think it's the Russian symbol for 'F'. The Russian symbol "D" also functions as a mouth in awe.