Squid Game mirrors South Korea's real-life debt crisis

‘Why would I want to watch a bunch of people with huge debts? I can look in the mirror’ Choi Young-soo Debtor

- Nemo Kim SEOUL and Justin McCurry TOKYO

After midnight, when the crowds of revellers have gone, Choi Young-soo* crouches in a shabby alleyway in Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district. This is the only time that the 35-year-old, a part-time food delivery rider, dare leave his tiny room at a cheap hostel he shares with about 30 other people. In a fictional world, Choi would not be out of place among the contestants on Squid Game, the wildly popular South Korean dystopian drama that pits the heavily indebted against each other in a macabre, blood-spattered race for an unimaginably large cash prize.

But Choi’s desperate situation is real – he is one of a growing number of ordinary South Koreans who find themselves choked by debt, in a country where taking out a loan is as easy as buying a cup of coffee. “I feel like other people sense that I’m a failure, so I only come out at night to smoke and watch the stray cats,” Choi said.