The Real Korea Behind the Scene
Was the dalgona "ppogi" game in Squid Game a real Korean childhood game?
① The Scene
Contestants have to carve out a shape (umbrella, star, triangle) stamped into a dalgona candy without breaking it — with deadly stakes. But the game itself is lifted directly from a real, old-school Korean street snack.
② Ordinary to Koreans, but…
For older Koreans, dalgona isn't a game with life-or-death stakes — it's a nostalgic cheap treat bought for pocket change outside the neighborhood stationery store as a kid.
③ Here's the Real Culture
Dalgona became a popular children's snack from the late 1950s, and by the early 1960s small home-based makers in Busan were mass-producing it, spreading it nationwide. It was a cheap treat made by melting sugar in a ladle, adding a pinch of baking soda to puff it up, then flattening it. One theory traces the name to a phrase meaning "sweeter than sugar." When street vendors started rewarding kids who could pop out a stamped shape without cracking it with a free extra piece, the snack evolved into "ppogi" (also called ttigi or tteki) — a street game testing hand skill, not just something to eat.
④ Is It Still True Today?
It's rare to stumble on it outside a stationery store today, but after Squid Game's global success, dalgona-making has come back as a nostalgic hands-on activity at tourist experience programs, festivals, and pop-up stalls. It hasn't vanished so much as shifted from an everyday childhood game into an experience people seek out on purpose.
