China’s Real-Life “Squid Game” Is Here

An ominous challenge resembling Netflix's brutal 
“Squid Game” is ensnaring Chinese people and  

wreaking havoc.  

Welcome to China Uncensored, 
I’m Chris Chappell. 

Throughout the years, all  

sorts of different challenges have spread far and 
wide across Chinese social media platforms.

For  

example, there are the infamous skinny challenges, 
where you have to show how skinny you are by doing  

things like tying an earphone cable around 
your waist

  
or reach around your back to  

touch your belly button. 


This is the one time 
starving under communism could actually benefit  

someone.

There are also several martial arts 
challenges involving impressive kicks…


and  

high jumps.


And then there’s this one, where 
people are supposed to enter or exit a subway  

train and then – TADA!


For this one, though, 
you have to be careful that you don’t get stuck  

in the subway time-and-space loop. This is what 
delays on New York transit feel like.


But while  

many Chinese online challenges are about showing 
off and having fun, riskier kinds have recently  

emerged with higher stakes and under darker 
circumstances.


Some of these are evoking  

eerie comparisons to the Netflix hit-series “Squid 
Game”, where a group of financially distressed  

contestants in South Korea compete against each 
other in a sequence of games over an astronomical  

cash reward that can only be claimed by the last 
person alive.


The most common such challenge  

in China often starts with an ad on a social 
media platform like Douyin,


showing footage  

of a person alone in a room going about their 
day.


This is accompanied by text and a voice  

explaining how a lot of money has been won by 
contestants taking up a self-isolation challenge,  

requiring them to simply stay in a hotel room for 
about a month, while outside staff made sure that  

they had all they needed, even providing 
three meals a day.

Doesn’t sound too bad.  

Kind of just sounds like China’s brutal new 
prison system, minus most of the more brutal  

elements.

Other videos show people the moment 
they successfully complete the self-isolation  

being cheerfully greeted by an organizer and 
presented with a cash prize of as much as one  

million yuan, about $140,000.


They made that 
much cash just by not interacting with someone for  

a month? I do that *every* month! I haven’t left 
this room since 2012!

Chinese people out there  

feeling jealous at this point in the story can 
rejoice. Because now they can have a shot at the  

prize money, too!


These videos are accompanied 
by the contact info of the organizers,


and a  

quick phone call is usually all it takes to 
get the green light from the operator


and,  

soon after, receive the documents outlining 
the rules of the game.


Hopefully,  

this isn’t so much like Squid Game that this is 
who gives the green light.


The rules usually  

don’t allow eating and drinking anything 
other than the food provided at each meal,  

and they also forbid smoking, using electronic 
devices, bathroom breaks exceeding 15 minutes,  

as well as any contact with people not involved 
in the challenge.


At the same time, players are  

often not allowed to cover up their faces or do 
anything


that restricts or limits the view of  

the surveillance cameras that will be monitoring 
their activities in the room 24/7 during the  

self-isolation. 


So it’s like an OnlyFans stream 
that you can’t leave. Hm. Gonna need to update  

Dante’s list and add this as the 10th circle 
of Hell.

Now, these rules might sound strict,  

but bear in mind that many people in China 
recently lived through years of the Chinese  

government’s draconian zero-COVID policy, where 
life was dictated by unpredictable red and green  

health codes…


as well as the wanton cruelty 
of Chinese officials wearing hazmat suits.


So,  

for many, this feels less like a challenge 
and more like nostalgia.

Many people  

experienced being locked down completely 
in their apartments for more than a month,  

sometimes with limited access to food and drink. 
By the time they were allowed to re-emerge,  

they were greeted by a surging COVID death 
toll during the chaotic end of the zero-COVID  

policy,


and they were welcomed by an ailing 
economy.
Rather than a million yuan. Yeah,  

I’m starting to see the appeal to this from their 
perspective.For people that lived through that,  

a self-isolation challenge probably sounds like 
a test they have already aced, and with a major  

cash prize waiting on the other side, they are 
within reach of a well-deserved reward after the  

years of COVID hardship. 
So, many willingly 
accept the terms of the game, as well as pay  

the around $1,000 fee that is usually required by 
most organizers – a small price to pay when you’re  

pretty much set to win $140,000.
I’m sure nothing 
bad can happen when people drop a ton of money  

expecting to win even more in the long run. That’s 
why all gambling addicts are millionaires!

When  

people afterwards check in to the designated 
isolation location, it makes sense if they feel  

confident about what lies ahead.   


But, as you 
might expect, few participants get anywhere close  

to completing the challenge. In fact, most are 
disqualified after only a few days into it.


One  

player named Sun, from Shandong Province, was 
eliminated after organizers said that he had  

covered his face with a pillow, which violated the 
rules.


Yeah, it’s pretty tricky to relive the  

Covid pandemic and not cover your face.

Another 
contestant named Zhang, from Shaanxi Province,  

was disqualified after he turned away from one of 
the cameras while making his bed.


That actually  

happened on Zhang’s *second* try. On his third 
try, the staff accused him of breaking the rules  

by covering a can of beer left in the room and 
then eliminated him because touching alcoholic  

beverages was considered a violation, even 
though he didn’t drink it.  


At that point,  

Zhang had spent nearly $3,000 on the challenge. 
A different Zhang, this one from Shanghai,  

spent nearly $14,000 on *ten* attempts at winning 
a self-isolation prize of around $55,000 and was  

at one point eliminated when organizers accused 
him of placing his backpack on a couch in his room  

in a way that violated the video surveillance 
rules.


Which is insane! But that’s okay. I’m  

sure his eleventh time will be successful!

Zhang 
from Shaanxi later told a Chinese outlet that  

“a relative told me that this is an outright 
scam”,


adding that “the rules sound simple, but  

the challenge pushes the limits of human endurance 
and is essentially impossible to complete.”


Now,  

it makes sense why some unscrupulous companies 
would set up scams like this.

They are able to  

rake in thousands of dollars in fees from players 
that are prepared to take a whole month out of  

their life, trusting that they have a fair shot 
at winning the prize money,


when, in reality,  

the scammers have no intention of letting anyone 
prevail and claim the winnings, no matter how many  

times they try.   


Except maybe the 11th time? 
Surely, that time’s the charm.

At the same time,  

given that the scammers are using the footage 
they have collected from former players to market  

their schemes to potential new players,


it's 
not unlikely that they are also making money  

selling some of this footage online, given that 
China has a market for recordings of people in  

private settings. 


Some hotel owners have even 
been busted for having installed spy cameras in  

the rooms they rent out to guests, enabling them 
to get their hands on footage that they can sell  

online.  


It’s a shocking scandal that I talk 
about in this video.


So, the question is not why  

crooked fraudsters would set up scams disguised as 
self-isolation challenges.

It’s more a question  

of why anyone in China would take the risk and 
sign up for such a challenge, when the country is  

a notorious hotbed of tricksters and home to some 
of the biggest scam networks in the world.
Except  

for the CCP, of course. I’m sure communism will 
improve the citizen’s lives any decade now.
Scams  

have become such a big problem that the Chinese 
authorities even launched a fraud awareness  

campaign in the middle of last year. Although, 
they’re so corrupt I wouldn’t be surprised if they  

scammed money out of it while warning about scams 
for money. 


But the scams are still thriving,  

and there’s one big reason why.

You see, China’s 
economy remains in the dumps,


which is hitting  

young people particularly hard with record youth 
unemployment.


One 24-year-old college graduate  

recently had to move back in with her parents 
when she got nowhere after sending out hundreds  

of resumes and failing to pass two civil service 
exams.


She told Voice of America that “it’s  

been a year since I graduated from university 
but I have no income, no savings and no social  

life”.


No money and no social life? Hey! I heard 
of a great challenge that should be easy for you  

to- oh. Yeah, I see how that’s easy to fall 
for.

Under equally difficult circumstances,  

many people simply give up and embrace their 
unemployment,


with some even opting to  

become “full-time children” back home with 
their parents. Which is maybe the only job  

where the benefits include Pizza Rolls and free 
laundry.


But many others have to keep toiling,  

flocking to recruitment fairs across China along 
with the many thousands in a similar situation  

in the hope that it will land them a job.
Some 
also build up mountains of debt in their struggle  

to make ends meet until they can hopefully find 
employment… preferably in a real job that offers  

Pizza Rolls and free laundry.


That depressing 
cocktail has made Chinese people easier targets  

for scammers.


Zhang from Shaanxi, who ended up 
spending around $3,000 on the self-isolation scam,  

fit the profile perfectly, given that he was 
unemployed and drowning in debt when he came  

across the ad for the challenge.


According to 
Chinese media Sixth Tone, when Zhang saw the ad,  

“he felt like he’d been offered a chance 
to turn his life around”, but instead,  

he ended up with even more debt.


But Chinese 
people are not taking the rip-offs lying down 

they’re fighting back against the scammers.

Sun 
from Shandong, who lost 6,000 yuan, about $840,  

during his go with a self-isolation challenge, 
sued the organizer and won in court. Now,  

ironically, it’s the scammer who’s trying to 
hide his face.


The only problem was that  

the company behind the challenge was reportedly 
only ordered to pay him 5400 yuan, about $760,  

in damages, which is less than what he lost to the 
scam.


Chinese courts are not exactly known for  

their fairness, given that they are firmly 
under the control of the Chinese Communist  

Party,


but hitting back at scam operations 
spitting out schemes across China that are  

being compared to a real-life Squid Game should 
really be in everyone’s interest – including the  

CCP’s.


Especially considering how favorable 
the situation has actually become for the scam  

industry these days.

But hey, maybe the CCP 
isn’t actively punishing the scammers because  

as scammers themselves, game recognize game.

The 
Chinese authorities have said that the lack of  

other job prospects is pushing some students to 
become scammers themselves,


while incidents  

of young graduates with advanced college degrees 
joining scam syndicates have also increased.


So  

the scammed are becoming scammers themselves. 
I knew scammers were monsters, but I didn’t  

realize they spread like vampires.

Fraudster 
networks with lots of young recruits available,  

plenty of potential victims to prey on, and facing 
minimal pushback by the authorities is not a great  

scenario for a country.

After all, who wants to 
live in a society where the most realistic job  

that people can hope for after graduation is as 
a Squid Game enforcer?


Or would that actually  

be an upgrade when compared to being an enforcer 
for the scammers that are currently ruling China,  

leaving people broke and hungry. But on the 
bright side,


That helps them crush this  

challenge.


And have you ever wondered what’s 
up with college professors and whips? Yes? Me  

too! Check out my latest episode of Deep Thoughts 
While Gaming—about what Indiana Jones teaches us  

about the life of your average college professor.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.