Season 2 of Squid Game has been available on Netflix since the end of December (and season 3 is already underway). A second season which brings its share of questions, in particular because of one of the music present in the series whose chorus in Korean sounds like “Hello Congolese” for our French-speaking ears. It is during episodes 5 and 6 that this song appears, more precisely during the game “Mingle”. In France, the trend is booming for two reasons: the song is catchy (even too catchy) and above all, we ask ourselves the following question: why would the Congolese be mentioned here?
This is in fact a huge misunderstanding. Some will not want to know anything and will continue to say that music in Squid Game contains these words but we, even if we would have liked to, are going to tell you the REAL story. The song is largely inspired by a Korean nursery rhyme which has the name translated as “In the Round”, a nursery rhyme itself inspired by an English ditty, “Ring-A-Ring O’Roses”. Originally completely benevolent, it is transformed for the occasion into a deadly creepy song. An auditory hallucination, therefore, very well explained by TikTok user @jiminlanguage.
Notre “Hello Congolese” is actually in Korean “doong-geul-gae” or “dunggeulge“, as confirmed by the Korean version broadcast by Netflix, a word which means “to go around in circles”, definitely more logical. No need to go around in circles anymore, the mystery is solved, and see you at the next auditory hallucination.
