SINGAPORE — A locally flavoured challenge on popular South Korean variety show Running Man came with rapid-fire, convoluted descriptions of dishes here that left both the cast members and Singaporeans scratching their heads. 

The long-running television programme made its way to town earlier this month to film episodes 680 and 681 of the show, where cast members and guests explored the island, completing various challenges with local twists. 

One such challenge dubbed the “Singlish Emergency” had cast members try to order food at Lau Pa Sat hawker centre based on supposedly Singlish descriptions. 

Several clips of the show were posted on TikTok after the episode’s airing last Sunday (Nov 19) depicting this segment.

A crew member behind the scenes explains: “You will buy five dishes that will be explained in Singlish, a Singaporean form of English.”

The team that successfully identifies and buys the right dishes would win the challenge.

Following the introduction, a man named “Gwee”, labelled as a “native Singaporean” by closed captions, begins describing the dishes.

Rather than the expected Singlish slang, however, cast members and viewers were greeted with long but quick descriptions delivered in a heavy Singaporean accent that left even Singaporeans reaching for the subtitles.

Gwee says as he described satay: “Raw onions and cucumbers together with the grilled beef on satay stick."

For ketupat and squid skewers, he adds: “Square white rice cake served together with roasted sotong stick.”

Listing a total of 10 items, he even includes the popular chilli crab dish, describing it as “the crab fried together with the hot chilli sauce”.

Cast members tried to pick out key words from the heavily accented English, successfully identifying some such as “spicy coconut”, “sugarcane juice” and “satay” to aid them in the challenge. 

Clips of the episode quickly went viral, with one post by user “runningmangames” attracting more than 321,100 views, 15,200 likes and 152 comments as of Wednesday (Nov 22) afternoon.

However, many TikTok users were appalled at the show’s inaccurate representation of Singlish, questioning the complicated descriptions and claiming that Singaporeans would not typically order food in such a manner. 

One user explained: “Singlish is about speaking efficient English. We don’t order food in such (a) complex manner.”

Another agreed: “Who orders like that? Just speak Singlish normally.”

In a true display of Singlish, someone wrote: “Eh, we don't even order liddat, I don't even understand what the guy talking, leh.”

Another remarked: “Even I don't understand what he ordered and I'm Singaporean.”

Other viewers pointed out that it was the high speed and use of broken English that made the order hard to understand, as opposed to the supposed “Singlish”. 

One said: “How is this even Singlish? It’s just a Singaporean Chinese speaking English words in a tone and speed that these Koreans can’t understand.”

Some viewers, however, were more understanding, choosing a lighthearted approach to the segment instead.

One said: “It's a show to test their understanding, that’s why (they) expanded the questions. To some people, the (Singaporean) accent (is) also considered Singlish. It’s just a game.” 

Another viewer said: “Everybody's saying (that) that's not how Singaporeans talk. I think it's Singlish, but just (that it’s) describing the food. I like it though.”

The episodes feature regular cast members Yoo Jae-suk, Haha, Jee Seok-jin, Kim Jong-kook, Song Ji-hyo and Yang Se-chan, as well as guest stars Hong Jin-ho and Shin Ye-eun. It was the first time that the show had been filmed in Singapore since fan meetings were held in 2013 and 2014. 

The next episode is set to air on Nov 26.