The Ancestral Pulse
- Peter K F Cheung SBS
- Nov 20, 2025
- 2 min read
FADE IN
Act 1
EXT. ROADS, XINHUI DISTRICT - 14:00 (YESTERDAY)
Sitting inside a coach, PETER looks out over the lush, green fields of Xinhui.
PETER (V.O.): It's the district where my ancestors resided.
Recalling.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): My grandpa moved to Hong Kong to start his business. My maternal grandma and my Dad joined him in the 1940s.
Recalling.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): My Mom and my Dad were schoolmates in Hong Kong. We lived in Central before we moved to Tin Sum, NT in 1960.
Watching.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): They cherished their ancestral homes here, just as much as I cherish Central.
Peter checks a phone message.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Oh, the Govt approves HKUST to establish Hong Kong's third medical school.
Act 2
FLASHBACK
INT. COUNCIL CHAMBERS, HKUST - DAY (2021)
Sleek. Heavy atmosphere. Listening to a presentation with other council MEMBERS, Peter is in deep thought.
PETER (V.O.): I'm very concerend about the decline in rankings, and hope this isn't a trend that continues.
Questions and answers.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I believe that establishing a medical school is the long-term win-win solution for the university and Hong Kong, though I recognize that it's easier said than done.
END FLASHBACK
EXT. GUIFENG MOUNTAIN - 14: 30
Exhibition hall. Peter is examining a large wall plaque featuring significant historical figures from Xinhui.
PETER (V.O.): Liang Qichao （梁啟超）(1873-1929) was a prominent Chinese scholar, journalist, and political reformer during the late Qing dynasty and early republic of China.
Examining.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Wu Tingfang （伍廷芳) (1942-1922) was a notable diplomat, politician and reformer around the same period.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): He was recognized as the first Chinese individual to be called to the Hong Kong Bar in 1879.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I was only called to the Hong Kong Bar in 1985. I designed and built Hong Kong's IP system...
Peter captures a photo of the wall plaque.
INT. SWIMMING POOL - 09:30 (Today)
Peter climbs up the pool ladder.
PETER (V.O.): I'm excited that HKUST will establish the third medical school in Hong Kong.
Bathroom. Peter is having a shower.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Law is generally reactive. It's the fence we build at at the edge of the cliff.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Law regulates social order, punishes transgression. It's necessary. But it only exists because people fail.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): But medicine is proactive. It's the care we take walking through the world.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): A child can be perfectly moral, a citizen can never break a law, and still, they can get sick. They can need a doctor.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): The demand is...human. Constant. It's not about correcting a wrong; it's about affirming a privilege. A privilege to health. To life.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I always believe to be a doctor is to be more useful than a lawyer.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): While I''m the first lawyer in the Cheung family, my younger son is the first to become a doctor.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Our ancestors don't speak to us in words, but in impulses - a pull toward a certain craft, a concern for a certain cause. That's the ancestral pulse, a vocation passed down through time.
Act 3
INT. LIVING ROOM - 21:30
Peter uploads a photo of significant historical figures from Xinhui to a draft on his laptop.
PETER (V.O.): The ancestral pulse is the universe's way of whispering, "I'm not an accident. I'm an answer."
Thinking.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): To feel the ancestral pulse is to understand I'm never truly a singular being, but a living chapter in a story that began long before me and will continue long after.
Reflecting.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): A family's ancestral pulse is a single melody. A culture's ancestral pulse is the symphony of human history.
FADE OUT
END
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