Staircases between two worlds兩個世界之間的階梯

The idea for this artwork began with the landscape of Sheffield, immediately bringing to my mind was the staircases and connecting to the Hong Kong film "Rouge".

This selected scene, while full of dark humour, also unexpectedly revealed some words for you and me.....

On the screen, the dialogue is written in Hongkongese and contains some wordplay and dark humour, particularly in the last few lines where "上面" (above) and "下面" (below) have double meanings. Here's a natural English translation that preserves both the literal meaning and the humour as much as possible.

The exchange relies on the ambiguity of: 「上面」 ("up there") — which the man initially uses to mean Mainland China (a common Hong Kong colloquialism). 「下面」 ("down below") — which the woman uses to mean the underworld / afterlife (hell), implying she is a ghost.

The man's reply then unintentionally accepts her supernatural meaning, making it a darkly comic exchange.

This type of humour is difficult to translate directly because English doesn't use "up there" and "down below" with the same geographical and supernatural meanings simultaneously. The translation above keeps the ambiguity as much as possible while remaining understandable.