Drum Tower of Xi'an

Stand at the foot of the Drum Tower and look up. A wide platform of grey brick rises above you, and above that sits a timber hall painted in deep red and green. Its upturned eaves cut sharp lines against the sky. Around you, scooters hum past, and from the lanes to the north comes the smell of roasting cumin and grilled lamb. This is where the old walled city of Xi'an keeps one of its oldest clocks.

The tower was built in 1380, early in the Ming dynasty. That was the dynasty that ruled China from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Its first emperor, the Hongwu Emperor, rebuilt Xi'an as a strong regional capital. He gave it the massive city walls that still circle the centre today. The Drum Tower belongs to that same building campaign, so it is more than six hundred years old.

Why build a tower just for a drum? In imperial China, cities measured the day with sound. A bell rang out in the morning, and a drum sounded at dusk. Chinese has a phrase for this rhythm, chen zhong mu gu, which means 'morning bell, evening drum.' When the drum boomed across the rooftops, people knew the day was ending. Gates would soon close, and the streets would go quiet.

Now turn and look southeast across the open square. That second tower, standing in the middle of a traffic circle, is the Bell Tower. The two buildings face each other across the plaza like a matched pair. Here is a detail many visitors miss — the Drum Tower is actually the larger of the two. Most people assume the Bell Tower is the grander one, because it sits at the exact centre of the city.

Look closely at how this building is put together. The lower part is a solid base of brick, pierced by a tall arched passage. Carts and people once passed straight through it. Above the base stands a wooden hall with two levels of eaves, one stacked over the other. This double roof was a sign of importance in Chinese architecture. The roof tiles are grey-green, and the beams under the eaves carry dense painted patterns.

Those painted beams are worth a slow look. Between the roof and the columns sit bracket sets, called dougong. These are interlocking wooden blocks that spread the weight of the heavy roof. They allow a building like this to stand without nails holding the main frame. The bright colours on them are not only decoration. The paint also protects the wood from rain and insects. Over the centuries, this paintwork has been renewed many times.

Now find the two large plaques hung high on the tower. On the south side, facing the Bell Tower, four gold characters read 'wen wu sheng di.' The phrase means roughly 'a land where civil and military virtues flourish.' On the north side, facing the old Muslim Quarter, the plaque reads 'sheng wen yu tian,' meaning 'its sound is heard in heaven.' The plaques you see today are modern reproductions. They were remade to match the old inscriptions after the originals were lost.

Walk along the outside of the upper level, and you will see rows of drums lining the north and south faces. There are twenty-four of them. Each one stands for one of the twenty-four solar terms. These are the traditional divisions of the Chinese farming year, with names like 'Grain Rain' and 'Awakening of Insects.' Farmers used them to know when to plant and when to harvest. So the drums are a calendar as much as a decoration.

Inside the hall, the tower holds a collection of drums from different periods and regions of China. Some are small hand drums, and others are large ceremonial pieces. One very large drum is said to be among the biggest in the country. It is a modern piece, made for display rather than the old city routine. Look at how the skins are stretched and fixed with rows of metal studs along the rim.

The tower is not silent today. At set times through the day, performers in traditional costume play short drum shows on the upper floor. The sound is physical — you feel it in your chest before you fully hear it. Standing in the wooden hall, you get a small sense of how far this noise once carried. In a city of low tiled roofs, a sound like this would have reached the walls.

The building has survived a lot. Wooden towers in China often burned, decayed, or suffered in war. This one was repaired several times under the Qing dynasty, which followed the Ming. It was restored again in the twentieth century and in more recent decades. So the timber you see is a mix of old and newer work. What stays constant is the shape — the same platform, the same double roof, in the same place since the fourteenth century.

From the upper balcony, look north. Directly behind the tower begins the Muslim Quarter, home for many generations to the Hui people. The Hui are Chinese Muslims, and many trace their roots to traders who came along the Silk Road. The arched passage under the tower leads straight into Beiyuanmen Street, lined with food stalls and shops. In the evening the lanes fill with steam, lanterns, and the sound of vendors calling out.

That link is worth thinking about. Long before the Ming built this tower, Xi'an was Chang'an, capital of the Tang dynasty. It was the eastern end of the Silk Road and one of the largest cities in the world. The Ming city around you is smaller than Tang Chang'an. But the mix of cultures in the streets below still carries traces of those older trade routes.

Before you leave, stand in the square for a moment and look back at the tower. If it is late in the day, the lights along the eaves will begin to glow gold. The Bell Tower will light up across the plaza too. Listen for the traffic, the voices, perhaps a last drum show from the upper hall. For six centuries, this tower told the city when evening had come. Tonight, it still does — in its own quiet way.