Yax lizard

亚克蜥 (yǎ kè xī): Yax Lizard

In Uyghur, the word for good is “yaxshi” (ياخشى‎) which is transliterated into Mandarin as 亚克西. The word “yaxshi” was used in a musical piece in the CCTV 2010 Spring Festival Gala entitled, “The Party's Policies are Yaxshi.” Netizens found the piece, which featured people adorned in traditional Uyghur dress dancing and praising the Communist Party, somewhat ironic in light of the violent anti-government riots less than a year earlier in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. (Another use of the word that did little to soothe Uyghurs' fears of being exploited by Han Chinese is a state-produced propaganda video in which performers sing, “Xinjiang's oil is yaxshi!”)

To parody the word “yaxshi,” netizens invented the “Yax lizard” which sounds the same as “yaxshi.” The Yax Lizard was dubbed “the first mythical creature of 2010” and placed in the metaphorical ecosystem of grass-mud horses and river crabs. For more on the fictional habitat of the Yax lizard, see, here (Chinese).

亞克蜥（亞克蜥是亞克西的諧音，亞克西是維吾爾語“好”、“優秀”的意思（ياخشى‎；yaxshi），也作「雅克蜥」）是中國網民惡搞的十大神獸之外，另一網絡神獸。 央視年三十晚播出的2010年春節聯歡晚會中第一個通過審查的節目是新疆歌舞《黨的政策亞克西》，中國網民不滿歌舞中与现实不符的言论，於是自“草泥馬” 後，根據“亞克西”的音創造出另一種叫“亞克蜥”的爬行動物蜥蜴。

Poster for a Uyghur performance entitled "Yaxshi."

One version of the Yax Lizard as a Komodo dragon.