Duan Zhiyuan has a simple philosophy: "Only those who do not cherish life can ignore music."

It is a creed that drove Duan, a retired editor from Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, to embark on a journey to Almaty, Kazakhstan, to retrace the footsteps of Xian Xinghai, the Chinese composer of the famed The Yellow River Cantata.

Duan says that since he was a child he has been an "active literary element". His understanding of music deepened as he aged, transforming from youthful enthusiasm into a profound respect for resilience, and he became engrossed in the story of Xian Xinghai.

In 1940, Xian was sent to the Soviet Union to make music for a revolutionary documentary, but work was suspended when the Great Patriotic War erupted in 1941. As Xian tried to return to China, he was stranded in Almaty, cut off from his homeland, but he continued to compose.

After a car accident 32 years ago, retirement beckoned for Duan, but that did not mean he was ready for a quiet life.

"I went to Almaty to see the Baikadamov family," Duan, 75, says, recounting his meeting with the daughter of the Kazakh choral director Bakhytzhan Baikadamov, who provided Xian with accommodation and food despite the family's limited means during Xian's last years. Despite the language barrier, a bond between Xian and Baikadamov formed.

The journey was personal for Duan. He spent his own savings and traveled despite physical challenges to document this history. The hospitality he found in Almaty mirrored the history he was chasing. A translator he recruited refused payment after seeing how determined Duan was, a gesture that Duan says deeply moved him.

His dedication did not go unnoticed by the composer's family either. Xian Nina, Xian Xinghai's daughter, was struck by how this stranger from Urumqi "poured all his resources" into retracing her father's steps in Almaty. "I don't think the average person could have achieved what he (Duan) did."

Duan has become the go-to expert on Xian, and he is a fierce advocate of the composer's spirit of internationalism. That work serves as a bridge, much like the one connecting his hometown of Urumqi with Almaty. While they were formally designated sister cities in 1993 — the first such pair between China and Kazakhstan — their relationship is not a modern administrative construct. It is a bond forged in the fires of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), traversed by an international route supporting China that ensured the transportation of critical supplies and the movement of people, one of them being Xian.

The bond formed in those dark days is now permanently etched into the map of Almaty. To honor the composer, the city renamed a street Xian Xinghai Avenue and erected a monument ensuring his legacy stands tall. Fittingly, this road runs parallel to Baikadamov Avenue, placing the two friends side by side, just as the pair were in life.