The Drum and Bell Towers

When night fell upon Beijing during the Qing dynasty, a curfew was imposed. The thunderous noise of drums and the deep sound of a bell marked the end of the day. The massive gates in the city wall were shut, and the banner-watchmen patrolled the streets. 

The Drum and Bell Towers of Beijing are easy to forget, because today we can walk right into the Forbidden City and look at the Imperial Palace itself, but originally the only buildings standing on the Imperial axis that commoners could see—apart from bridges and gates—were the drum and bell towers. Both of these structures are higher than any building inside the Forbidden City. This attests to the importance and status these two timekeepers held in old Beijing.

When the British Lord Macartney visited Beijing in 1793, he wrote in his diary that he simply could not sleep due to the unfamiliar noises of the night. The drums of the Drum Tower were beaten every second hour, and within these 2-hour periods watchmen patrolled the hutong alleyways and coordinated their beats with chant and pieces of hollow bamboo beaten together.

The background material for this walk comes from a nearly 200-year-old “police” archive first published in 1851. These old documents tell stories of murderers, drunks, rebels and other unfortunate people that entered the files of the Banner-watchmen.

Today the Drum and Bell towers are no longer dictating the rhythm of Beijing, but the old timekeepers are still standing, and the thunderous noise of the drums can still be heard as a performance. Moreover, the hutong alleyways around the towers are among the most charming in the whole city of Beijing.