The Girl in the Background
- Peter K F Cheung SBS
- Nov 6
- 3 min read
FADE IN
Act 1
INT. BEDROOM - 06:45
PETER, holding his smart phone, gazes intently at a black-and-white photo.
PETER (V.O.): We're captured in black and white, frozen in happiness in the Hong Kong Botanical Garden.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): At the centre of the frame sat a hopeful family portrait: my Dad (27), my Mom (28), my sister (7), my brother (1) and me (4).
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): As my wife and others identify everyone in the photo, the curious inevitably ask: "who's the girl in the background?"
Recalling.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): She's Kit Mui (潔梅), my Mom's half-sister (6). She was shy and didn't want to join us.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I wonder if Kit Mui knew she'd appear in the background of the photo.
Act 2
FLASHBACK
INT. RESTAURANT, FAN LING - 14:30 (Nov 3, 2025)
Bright, airy. Peter and his WIFE are having afternoon tea with Peter's smiling UNCLE and AUNT.
UNCLE: So your elder daughter is working in Seoul and your son-in-law is Korean.
PETER: Yes.
AUNT: How about your younger daughter?
WIFE: She's still studying sculpting in Niigata.
UNCLE: Our younger daughter has just returned from Bristol. Our American son-in-law works there. The world is so small now.
PETER: It is. But sometimes, I think about how small it was back then. In the old days. Late 50s.
UNCLE: Ah, Central. We're all packed in there like sardines.
PETER: I did Primary 1 at that school on Hollywood Road. Before my family moved out to Tin Sum in NT.
Uncle stops, a har gow dumpling halfway to his mouth. He puts it down.
UNCLE: Hollywood Road? Kit Mui went to that school.
Peter looks up, surprised.
PETER: She did? I never knew that.
UNCLE: Yes. Funny story. Over 20 years ago, I had a workmate. We're chatting about the old neighbourhood, and he said, "I was in the same class as a girl named Kit Mui." Small world, eh?
MONTAGE OF PETER'S MEMORIES OF KIT MUI
A. Cockloft dwelling - Night. Kit Mui (7) scrubs white school shoes with a brush, her small hands working meticulously. The shoes, when she places them down, look impossibly white, almost new.
B. Cooking area - Day. Kit Mui (13) stands at a stove, stirring a wok. Her back is to Peter. But her silhouvette is wrong. Her once-slim body is puffy, swollen.
END MONTAGE
PETER: I stayed with you all in that cockloft one night. Kit Mui cleaned our shoes, making them look brand new.
Pausing.
PETER(Cont'd): I remember...the last time I saw her. She was cooking. She wasn't slim anymore.
Uncle nods slowly, his face grim. He sips his tea.
UNCLE: It was the kidneys. The disease. Her body...it swelled up. She couldn't fight it.
Peter's wife puts a hand over her mouth.
WIFE: How old was she?
UNCLE: 13. She was only 13.
PETER (V.O.): Her entire life was spent in the margins of our world, a faint pencil sketch next to our bold, linked joy.
Sighing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Kit Mui was the blur of colour, of life, of suffering that I failed to see then.
PETER: Life is so unfair.
The table is quiet.
PETER (V.O.): Some stories are too short to be forgotten. They need to be written down.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Yes, I'll write a short story about Kit Mui, breathing life into her character.
RETURN TO PRESENT
Act 3
INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
Peter uploads the black-and-white family photo with a girl in the background onto a draft on his laptop.
PETER (V.O.): We're posing for a future we hoped to have. Kit Mui was just passing by, a fleeting memory in our minds.
Thinking.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Family photos are filled with the stories we chose to tell. The real history is often written in the faces of those we left in the background.
Reflecting.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): It's only with the slow focus of age that I can see the most important person in the photo was the one I never saw clearly.
FADE OUT
END
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