{"id":158838,"date":"2013-07-03T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T19:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=158838"},"modified":"2013-07-01T12:17:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T19:17:25","slug":"word-of-the-week-yax-lizard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/07\/word-of-the-week-yax-lizard\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week: Yax Lizard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Word of the Week<\/a>\u00a0comes from China Digital Space\u2019s\u00a0Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon<\/a>, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China\u2019s online \u201cresistance discourse,\u201d used to mock and subvert the official language around\u00a0censorship<\/a>\u00a0and political correctness.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u4e9a\u514b\u8725 (y\u01cek\u00e8x\u012b): yax lizard<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/a>

Poster for a Uyghur performance entitled \u201cYaxshi.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

The Yax Lizard was dubbed \u201cthe first mythical creature of 2010,\u201d joining the grass-mud horse<\/a> and the river crab<\/a> in the Mahler Gobi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYaxshi\u201d (\u064a\u0627\u062e\u0634\u0649\u200e) means \u201cgood\u201d in the Uyghur language and is transliterated into Mandarin \u4e9a\u514b\u897f y\u01cek\u00e8x\u012b. The Uyghurs are a majority Muslim Turkic people and the titular nationality<\/a><\/strong> of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China\u2019s far west.<\/p>\n

The yax lizard rose to fame in the CCTV 2010 Spring Festival Gala<\/a><\/strong>, \u201cThe Party\u2019s Policies are Yaxshi,\u201d featured dancers adorned in traditional Uyghur dress praising the Communist Party, a great irony in light of the inter-ethnic riots in Xinjiang<\/a> the summer before. Han Chinese migrants to Xinjiang are often better able to find work and prosper in the region, leading to tension and sometimes violence.<\/p>\n

Before it rose to stardom, the yax lizard appeared earlier in other propaganda, such as this music video<\/a>, where even \u201cXinjiang\u2019s oil is yaxshi!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Word of the Week\u00a0comes from China Digital Space\u2019s\u00a0Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China\u2019s online \u201cresistance discourse,\u201d used to mock and subvert the official language around\u00a0censorship\u00a0and political correctness. \u4e9a\u514b\u8725 (y\u01cek\u00e8x\u012b): yax lizard The Yax Lizard was dubbed \u201cthe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":991,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[99,14748,14744,100,5,4202],"tags":[8181,15460,15153,5921],"class_list":["post-158838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cdt-highlights","category-gmh","category-level-2-article","category-politics","category-society","category-translation","tag-urumqi-protests-2009","tag-uyghurs","tag-word-of-the-week","tag-xinjiang","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nWord of the Week: Yax Lizard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/07\/word-of-the-week-yax-lizard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Word of the Week: Yax Lizard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The\u00a0Word of the Week\u00a0comes from China Digital Space\u2019s\u00a0Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China\u2019s online \u201cresistance discourse,\u201d used to mock and subvert the official language around\u00a0censorship\u00a0and political correctness. \u4e9a\u514b\u8725 (y\u01cek\u00e8x\u012b): yax lizard The Yax Lizard was dubbed \u201cthe […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/07\/word-of-the-week-yax-lizard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-03T19:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-07-01T19:17:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Yakexi_poster-240x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Henochowicz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta 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