The window above my desk was filled with a view of Beijing’s ancient Drum Tower, a soaring wooden pavilion built in 1272. For hundreds of years the Drum Tower, and its neighbor the Bell Tower, kept time for the people of the city, telling them when to sleep and when to rise. They were the tallest buildings for miles around. The Drum Tower contained twenty-four giant leather-covered drums, large enough that their thundering could be heard in the farthest reaches of the capital.
