Chinese drum players dressed in Qing dynasty costume perform during the drum beating ceremony at Beijing's Drum Tower to celebrate the approach of the New Year on December 31, 2001. New Year's Eve in Beijing has seen the rebirth of an ancient Chinese tradition, the sounding of the drums at the city's Drum Tower. Until the drums were silenced in 1924, the instruments had been used to signal the time for the people of Beijing for hundreds of years.