FROM FURY TO FRIENDSHIP

It is advisable to nip any disagreement in the bud before it becomes a full-blown dispute. Mediation is one such way to prevent this from happening. Sometimes, not only is a resolution achieved, parties involved in a dispute might even make friends out of enemies!

Tian Song, a retiree, thought he would soon lose his marbles because of his upstairs neighbours. Every day, it seemed, irritating noise from their flat made its way down to his. Most of the time it sounded like, yes, people were actually playing with marbles! He knew the family had three children, and so assumed it was them who were responsible for disturbing his afternoon nap.

Tian Song came fuming to the mediation, aggressively pushing his case and demanding the noise be put to a stop. However, after hearing Keshia out for the first time ever, Tian Song realised that it could be a misunderstanding of his and appeared much calmer soon after.

The mother of the three kids, Keshia, was at a loss when she first received the letter from CMC stating that the Courts had referred the case, filed by her neighbour downstairs, for mediation. She had already explained to Tian Song that her children had never played with marbles, as they are all still small, with the oldest only five. Giving them marbles to play would prove too dangerous as they might accidentally swallow one. In fact, she even invited Tian Song to her place to see the kind of toys her children played with. During the session, she also shared further that she was anyway only renting the flat for a year and would be leaving once her new flat was ready.

Hearing Keshia’s side of the story and her sincerity to rectify the noise problem that had bothered him so much, Tian Song was convinced that it could be a misunderstanding on his part. From then on, he appeared much more friendly than when he first came storming in. The mediators noticed that and nudged them on to speak to each other more freely, and before long, some kind of friendship began to emerge.

The session continued with the two parties sharing more about their hobbies rather than the issue that bothered them at first. With Tian Song being an avid angler, and upon learning that Keshia loved to cook, he immediately suggested that she could help prepare some nice dishes with his future catch. In the end, it was a dispute well settled that helped someone create a friend out of an enemy!

[Names and other identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals whose stories are portrayed in this article.]