Some journeys do not begin with the traveller. They begin decades earlier, carried quietly across generations until someone finally walks them into the present.

For me, a recent delegation visit to Xinjiang with the Pakistan-China Friendship Association was not merely a diplomatic mission, but the continuation of a seven-decade family legacy. My family’s connection with China spans more than seven decades. In 1966, my grandfather, S. M. Hassan Gilani, travelled as part of a Pakistani press delegation and met senior Chinese leaders, including Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Chen Yi. A photograph from that visit, preserved by our family, marks an early chapter in Pakistan-China relations, when the foundations of mutual trust were still being built.

Years later, my late father, Syed Ali Nawaz Gilani, carried that legacy forward as General Secretary of the Pakistan-China Friendship Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter. He devoted much of his life to strengthening people-to-people ties through cultural exchange and mutual understanding. Our delegation, led by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati, followed a rigorous programme of official, cultural, and institutional engagements in Urumqi.Honestly, initially I viewed this journey as a cultural and diplomatic visit. It soon became clear, however, that I was participating in a story much larger than myself one that had begun long before I was born.

Yet amid the formal programme, what stood out most was........

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