SHANGHAI, Sept. 13 -- THANKS to mediation by the Tianlin Sub-district Government in Xuhui District, a senior resident agreed to stop playing funeral music, a practice he conducted for half a month to protest against a 24-hour restaurant under his apartment.

The man surnamed Pan in his 60s said the restaurant created an annoying oil smell and smoke during the daytime and made too much noise producing soy-bean milk at night, which seriously affected his life.

After some attempts to negotiate with the landlord and the restaurant managers failed, the retired worker came up with the idea of playing funeral music at 11am and 5pm every day over powerful speakers.

``I have no alternative but to let out my anger and disappointment in this way,'' Pan said.

Neighboring residents said they sympathized with Pan's suffering, but accused him of becoming another noise maker.

Chen Linmei, a member of the Tianlin Sub-district Government, contacted Pan on the phone on Wednesday. Following an hour's persuasion, the man finally promised to give up playing the funeral music.

``We had been working on the issue some time before,'' Chen said.

``In February, the Xuhui District Environment Supervision Station inspected the restaurant and released an examination report that showed the noise didn't break standards and the restaurant did not disobey any rules.''

Another sub-district government official Wang Ping said several solutions had been worked out and the negotiations are still ongoing.

``Whatever the result is, we will take residents' interests into consideration and advise the restaurant to pay a certain amount of compensation.''