Angry with a neighbor or a family member? Enter the peacekeepers
In Shanghai, the folklore term laoniangjiu, or “old uncles,” refers to kind-hearted older people always ready to step in to help resolve family or neighborhood disputes. But at the Huajing Town judicial office in Xuhui District, the “old uncles” are young peacekeepers mostly in their 30s.
This year they are operating under a new policy that requires Hotline 110 calls about disputes between patients and hospitals, between family members or between neighbors to be referred to official mediators instead of the police.
One of the six peacekeepers in the office is Chen Lieping, 38, who has been working in mediation for eight years. He represents the young generation now entering a field formerly dominated by older practitioners.
Besides the town mediation team, each of the 17 neighborhoods in the town has a full-time mediator and volunteer mediators who work part-time.
Chen fields assignments that reach him via a platform soon after complaints come into the hotline. He can also access the information on his cellphone.
"Prior to the new policy, the principal channel for receiving the information came by police from fax, which often didn’t arrive until the next day," Chen told Shanghai Daily. "Now, with the new online platform, we all have an app on our smartphones that delivers the information in real time and keeps us apprised of case progress. Quick response is often needed.”
A mediator assigned a complaint is expected to arrive on the scene within two hours during work hours. In off-duty time, the mediator calls the complainant and makes an appointment. If a conflict grows beyond the scope of mediators, it is referred back to police.
In the past two months, their office has fielded 75 calls from the Hotline 110 center, and nearly all of them were resolved by Chen and his colleagues. Most of the disputes, he said, are related to matters of love and family affairs.
During the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, there were eight 110 calls transferred to the office. One of them came from an elderly father who hails from the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu Province but was staying with his daughter in Shanghai. A dispute over trifles arose, and the angry father wanted to return to his hometown. To prevent that, his daughter hid his identity card.
In a fit of pique, the father told the hotline he had been beaten by his daughter, who had taken his ID card away. Once Chen arrived, the man started to calm down, and the discord was finally defused.
Another case he handled after the holiday also involved family members. A 92-year-old grandfather claimed his son-in-law often abused him and had fractured his leg. However, mediators found that the old man’s daughter and son-in-law were treating him nicely and that the discord with the son-in-law dated back to a scolding the younger man once gave him.
An X-ray of the grandfather’s leg showed no fracture but merely degeneration due to aging. After intervention, the mediators soothed the old man’s anger and ensured that the daughter understood the root cause.
Many calls relate to disputes between neighbors.
In January, a middle-age woman tearfully complained to Chen and his colleagues that her downstairs neighbor bears a grudge against her family and had splashed oil on her route to the garbage bins. She called police, but after arriving, they referred the matter to mediators.
A community mediator first intervened, but his efforts at reconciliation failed. Chen was called in.
Chen visited both the complainant and her neighbor, who denied the oil allegation. Surveillance video confirmed his version of events. Chen showed the tape to the woman and she backed off her anger.
"For disputes between couples, the role we mediators play is mainly as a listener of grievances," said Chen. "Without mediation, many problems cannot be resolved properly. Many people we see just need to air their anger and rid themselves of anxiety. We try to help them dispel their unpleasant feelings."
Chen’s colleague Shi Liangyan said early intervention in cases is usually essential to prevent situations from worsening.
By February, the mediation organizations in Xuhui had received more than 870 cases from police.
Zhao Bing, an official with the district judicial office, told Shanghai Daily that the only problem encountered so far is complainants’ misunderstanding of why a mediator shows up after they call police. Some initially reject mediation.
"We are now working to educate the public about the new policy and how mediation can help people," he said.
Cooperation between the Hotline 110 center and mediators is expected to span an array of disputes -- over money, traffic accidents, employment, resettlement, real estate, school affairs and between drivers and passengers.
According to Zhao, the district judicial office already has two mediation committees for handling environmental disputes and consumer complains. It will set up a combined mediation center for consumers with the market watchdog this month.
Chen Lieping and another mediator are working at a public legal service workstation of the Huajing Town judicial office in Xuhui District.
Chen Lieping is answering a phone call about 110 hotline case transferred from local police.
Chen Lieping is showing the app he uses on his smartphone that delivers the information in real time and keeps him apprised of case progress.
Shi Liangyan is taking notes about the case information provided on the online platform.
Shi Liangyan and her colleague are working at a small mediation court set in the Huajing Town judicial office in the Xuhui District.
