The Asian Student Union (ASU) kicked off its first meeting of the spring semester by challenging its members to play several games from the Netflix series “Squid Game.”
“Squid Game,” a Netflix series that came out in 2021, involves a large group of contestants who must compete against each other in a series of children’s games or face deadly consequences. However, the only consequence of losing a game at ASU’s meeting was removing a losing player’s number tag, which players were asked to put on before playing.
Hosted at Elings Hall, the meeting involved four different games based on ones from the original series, including “Red Light Green Light,” a 3-legged race, “Mingle” (a game of musical chairs with a twist) and a final game of rock, paper, scissors to decide a winner.
ASU is a student organization “dedicated to advancing awareness of the Asian identity at Iowa State University through community building, promoting personal and group wellness, civic engagement and building a strong foundation of leaders within the Asian community,” according to the club’s website. It is open to all students at Iowa State.
Jaelyn Luong, club president and senior studying culinary food science, said the group decided to host the games because of the release of the show’s second season.
“I wanted to do this game in the past and I saw the new season was coming up, so I thought this would be a perfect fit to do this for a meeting,” Luong said. “We wanted to get this one out of the way because it requires a lot of planning.”
With the officers of the club dressed up as “guards” to watch for losing players, the games began.
As each game came and went, more players became eliminated. Three such players eliminated during the three-legged races were students Aaron Luong, Hannah Walker and Javarius Foreman.
Walker, a junior in environmental science, and Foreman, a senior in accounting, said they had seen the show before. However, Luong, a sophomore in finance, said he had not.
“I’ve seen the clips on TikTok,” Aaron Luong said. “So I had a rough idea of how it was.”
Walker spoke about her experience competing in the first game of “Red Light, Green Light.”
“It was easier than I thought it was going to be,” Walker said.
Foreman said he felt that the club “did a good job putting it together.”
“It works,” Foreman said. “I actually had a really good time.”
As the games continued, the amount of participating players dwindled until it was down to a sudden death between the last two contestants, numbers 36 and 37.
Ultimately, a victor prevailed and Kishiro Goto, a sophomore in architecture, was named the winner. He was awarded a Funko Pop of a “Squid Game” character and a 3D-printed mask of the show’s “Front Man” character.
Goto shared his thoughts on his victory.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Goto said. “I had a lot of fun.”
ASU will be hosting a Lunar New Year-themed meeting from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in Pearson Hall Room 2115. For more information, visit ASU’s Instagram.
