"In most cases, no one cares about ordinary people's complaints.It is much easier for the media to bargain for us"
File your complaint - and hope

By Surreal Xu, Shanghai Star. 2002-09-19
"Give back my sunshine, give back my road". Some residents show their irritation with infringement of consumer rights by streaming a banner in a residential district.

Local residents increasingly turn to journalists instead of government offices to air their complaints about the daily frustrations of life

YUAN Jiafu, a reporter from East Radio Shanghai, describes his job as "almost like quarreling with others every day".

"I hear the complaints from our audience and go to interview the target of the complaint, then a complicated explanation starts, with discussion and communication," he said. "I just want to give my audience a satisfactory answer."

Yuan is a reporter working in the Xinfang, or "Letters and Calls", Department. He and several other colleagues receive letters of complaint and take calls.

On average, he receives 80 to 90 letters each day. He is in charge of a programme called Dongfang Chuanhu which means "East Call", a call-in programme which deals with ordinary people's complaints.

"It is really not a happy thing to see people living amid excessive noise or with piles of rubbish outside the window," said the 52-year-old man, honoured as a national model worker.

Bridging a gap

Actually almost every mainstream media channel and government department has such a letters and calls department to receive and solve people's complaints. It is said to be an important part of the government's efforts to closely integrate the relationship between cadres and ordinary people, to solve people's difficulties. Such programmes serve as a channel for the government to listen to, understand and unite with ordinary people.

For ordinary people they provide a way to find a helping hand after meeting with official rebuffs.

"In most cases, no one cares about ordinary people's complaints. It is much easier for the media to bargain for us," said a local resident who asked to remain anonymous.

Residents living on Guolin Nanlu used to complain frequently to the subdistrict office about the shabby and muddy road near their community.

"We went to the office, they just wrote down what we said, but we waited and waited without any improvement - the road was still muddy," said the resident.

Then, one day, a news story about the complaint was carried on Xinmin Evening News. Although only a small letter, signed "the local residents", it gave people great hope. Quite quickly the problem was solved.

"We believe writing to the media can help a lot," she said.

Anything goes

This popular confidence can put letters and calls departments under a lot of pressure.

Over the four years that Yuan Jiafu has been in charge of the programme he has received more than 60,000 letters and about 100,000 telephone calls.

The same situation also exists in TV stations.

"What makes my head ache is that there are so many complaints from the city, we are exhausted running from this problem to another every day," said Lu Wei, a reporter from the Shanghai Oriental TV Station.

Among the piles of complaints, environmental pollution, traffic problems, poor product quality and issues with the real estate trade are always listed near the top.

Residents living on Miyun Lu used to write to the TV station about the noise at midnight. There was a fish market near the community which was a source of noise disturbance late at night when retailers transported their produce. In addition, the bad smell from the fish market forced residents to keep their windows closed, even during summer.

Residents complained to the local subdistrict office repeatedly, but without result. The office benefited from the market through the collection of administrative fees.

The problem, which could have been solved quickly, was only settled after the media intervened.

"It makes me a little upset that the number of similar complaints never decrease," Yuan said.

Some disputes even sound like black humour. A hospital was quarrelling with a real estate enterprise about the development of some nearby houses. In order to pressure the real estate company to give them houses, the hospital wrote the words "Mortuary and Body-Placing House" in big letters on a sign covering almost 80 square metres on the top of the hospital building, which was close to the real estate project. This impacted badly on the sale of the houses, but it also had a bad effect upon the feelings of people living nearby. In the end, the hospital was asked to remove the words.

Red tape

"But sometimes, people don't co-operate with our job at all," Yuan said. "Government officials kicking the ball from here to there is the biggest headache for us."

Once he received a letter from a resident of the Minhang District. The person complained there was no public telephone in the community and also of a huge noise problem. So Yuan transferred the letter to the Minhang District Government, but their answer angered Yuan a lot. It said that the problem was impossible to solve and if there were any similar letters the government office wouldn't reply.

"I worry that a small part of the bureaucracy disobeys the rules that say they should serve the people," Yuan said.

Because Yuan's programme, which is one of the longest running of its kind, wields considerable influence over society, Yuan regularly receives threatening calls.

He once wrote a story about a well-known supermarket, which he accused of selling dirty vegetable and giving short weights. The supermarket phoned him at midnight to bargain. But Yuan ignored all their promises and threats.

"At first, I felt nervous when I received such calls, but I am used to them by now," he said. "I found that the people making such calls are even more nervous than I am."



Copyright by Shanghai Star.