Design Is Not Explanation, but Empathy

That design is not explanation but empathy.

He was a senior fixture on the City Council's Industry and Construction Committee, yet he never took the floor, never fawned over the chairman — a man who seemed perpetually content to hold the middle ground, wherever it might be.

He was the one I decided to meet first.

The venue was a barbecue restaurant near the council building. Three o'clock in the afternoon, well past lunch hour, and the private room I had reserved held nothing but a neatly arranged table setting.

I had taken off my suit jacket and rolled up my shirt sleeves, already seated when I arrived early. The menu was set: short ribs across the board.

I'd heard the councilor was fond of naengmyeon, cold buckwheat noodles, but I judged it wiser to steer clear of the familiar.

Councilor Ko Jae-hoon, to my surprise, arrived precisely on time. He opened the door, caught sight of me, and offered a brief smile.

"Mayor, I'm late, aren't I?"

"Not at all. If anything, I'm the early one. These days, grilling the meat myself is the only thing that takes the edge off."

"You have that kind of leisure?"

"That's why I invited you, Councilor. Grilling together makes things less complicated."

The conversation began with the sound of meat on the grill.

For a while, nothing filled the room but the sizzle of searing fat spitting over the hot plate. We each turned our cuts of meat with careful hands, and before any words found their order, the sequence of grilling did.

"Mayor, to be honest, I think this Citizen Participation Corps idea isn't bad."

He spoke first.

"It's fresh, and frankly, I was a little envious. The kind of picture you're painting never takes shape inside the city council."

I nodded.

"Which is exactly why I'm being careful. Administration runs on explanation, but politics can't be carried by explanation alone."

He took a sip of water and lifted his head.

"Let me be blunt. What you're saying sounds good, Mayor, but the vote math doesn't work. Citizens applaud, the press writes it up — all well and good. But come the next election, what are we supposed to tell people? That we just stood by and did nothing?"

I set down the tongs and spoke slowly.

"Votes are what follow once the persuasion is finished. I'm building that right now. What I wanted to ask was that you watch this current unfold together with me."

He moved a piece of meat onto my plate as he answered.

"Mayor, whenever I speak frankly at a table like this, it always gets complicated later."

"I'll shoulder every bit of the complicated part. All you need to do right now is become a little less complicated yourself."

He ate a piece of meat in silence, and I picked up the tongs in turn to tend the grill.

"Mayor, you really are good at this."

"Managing the heat is the foundation of all design."

At that, he snorted a laugh.

"A young mayor with a solid line in dad jokes, too."

I laughed along. Inwardly, though, I wanted to say one thing.

I only look young on the outside. Inside, I was raised on dad jokes.

In the car back to City Hall, Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon asked me,

"The first one — do you have a feel for him?"

I answered while looking out the window.

"The meat's done, and the persuasion has caught fire. It'll need a few more flips before it's ready, though."

My next meeting, with a councilor of neutral leanings, was set for a coffee shop near City Hall. We were on terms where names hardly needed saying — a man whose routes, his manner of speech, even how many words he'd spend were all entirely predictable.

With a councilor like that, observation came before any offensive.

Seated at a table toward the back, an espresso before me, I did not open the conversation. I waited until he arrived, exchanged greetings, received his coffee, and settled in — and simply watched, letting him speak first.

"Mayor, I don't deny your philosophy of governance."

That was how he opened.

"But whether your methods will always produce politically sound outcomes — on that, I can't help being skeptical."

I raised my cup and took a sip of coffee.

"That skepticism is mine to overcome, then."

He nodded.

"The design competition, the Citizen Participation Corps — all well and good. What I don't understand is why this situation arose at all. Nothing like it has happened before."

I set my cup down and answered quietly.

"Because the old methods created more suffocating gridlock than they solved ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠problems. So I thought we might use this chance to build something new."

He studied me for a long moment, then smiled faintly.

"You speak so cleanly, Mayor, that listening to you is a pleasure. And yet afterward, everything feels more complicated."

"Then let's leave today less complicated than we found it."

He took out his phone, checked something, and lifted his cup again.

"Even so — you're the first person this entire session to request a conversation this courteously."

I smiled and replied,

"If courtesy is a strategy, then I can afford it."

After a short silence, he left me with this:

"Politics is, in the end, emotion. Remember those words."

I carved them into my mind the way one writes a line into a notebook.

Things that could never be said in a session came drifting across the coffee cups.

Another councilor, I'd heard, spoke better on a mountain than in a chamber. He climbed the trail behind City Hall two or three times a week before work, so I matched him — out at the trailhead at six in the morning, dressed in workout clothes.

He was already there, and he looked me over and said,

"You actually came."

I smiled.

"Only my third workout this week. I figure persuasion on foot is a kind of design, too."

That was what I said, but for the first twenty minutes neither of us could manage much talk. The trail was steeper than it looked, and the councilor climbed ahead of me with practiced strides.

I focused on my footing instead of words, keeping my breath steady — until he spoke first.

"Mayor, about the restoration project's Citizen Participation Corps. I don't dispute that current. However…"

He stopped, turned partway back toward me, and said,

"I'd like us to be inside it, too."

I caught my breath slowly and nodded.

"I'm glad you said that before it was too late."

We started walking again, and sunlight began seeping through the trees in scattered threads.

I matched his pace a little closer and spoke.

"If a policy goes wrong, you can change it. But a relationship, once severed, rarely mends cleanly."

He nodded without a word. That nod carried more weight than any answer could have.

By the time we reached the rest shelter near the summit, the dawn light was already spilling over the ridge. The councilor pulled a small tumbler from his backpack and held it out to me.

"Warm water. No need to persuade me with this one. Just take it."

I chuckled at that and unscrewed the lid.

"Well then — consider this the signal of an agreement."

He answered with a smile.

Coming down the mountain that day, I was certain of one thing. Not a word had been exchanged, yet the persuasion I'd won that morning was the deepest of all.

The last councilor was a man for whom even scheduling a meeting felt awkward. Always quiet, unfailingly present at sessions yet barely ever speaking, and when contacted, never clearly accepting or declining anything.

So I decided to simply run into him — at the City Hall cafeteria.

Councilors, as a rule, rarely set foot in the staff cafeteria, but this man dropped by now and then for a light meal.

And so I engineered what I liked to call "accidental route design."

I arrived at the cafeteria ten minutes later than usual, around 12:25, and as I picked up a tray and joined the food line, he stood third in it.

I deliberately fell in one person behind, timing my side dishes to match his. The trick was to find a seat and sit down before he finished eating.

Fortunately, a corner table was still open, and as I carried my tray toward it, he happened to settle at the one beside mine.

I greeted him without hesitation.

"Councilor, good choices today."

He wasn't flustered in the least.

"Mayor, going with the saury, I see."

"Yes. Mackerel is just too familiar."

The pace of conversation was slow, but the atmosphere ripened nicely.

I lifted my chopsticks quietly and said,

"The truth is, today's encounter is an interview disguised as coincidence."

He tilted his head.

"An interview?"

"Yes. Two days ago I decided I owed you a meal. But I worried a formal call would burden you, so I arranged this meeting instead."

He gave a short laugh. When the room had gone a little quieter, I spoke carefully.

"This policy wasn't something I drew up in sweat and toil. The citizens wanted the chance to lay their own voices directly onto the blueprints, and I'm here to keep that from being scattered."

He paused, spoon halfway raised, then nodded.

"That lands better than any report."

I smiled.

"That's why I didn't bring one."

That meal was the shortest of all the persuasions I'd made that day — and the most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠comfortable.

No formal meeting, no invitation. Yet with a single cafeteria tray, I had stepped, very carefully, inside another person's heart.

In all, I had now met four councilors face to face.

The last one remaining was the quietest of all, the most sparing with his words. I had requested a courteous meeting, but the reply came back citing a private matter before any schedule could be discussed — and even that reply had arrived through his aide.

I decided ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that with this man, it was better not to face him head-on but to set my words beside him.

So I wrote a letter. Past eleven at night in the mayor's office, after every meeting had ended, I switched the desk lamp back on. A sheet of A4 looked far too large, so I tore a meeting notebook in half and used the pages as stationery.

Writing this way was harder than drafting official statements or planning documents. I sat with the pen in my hand for several minutes, unable to put down a single word.

I knew that political language had to be brief and sincerity oddly long for either to land —

and yet I wanted to write it short.

The first sentence, in the end, began like this.

Halfway through, I tore up a few lines and started over — careful not to seem too pleading, yet not so indifferent either.

At last, I finished it.

I folded the paper in half and slipped it into an envelope, then wrote by hand across the front: For Councilor ○○○'s eyes only.

In the morning, I asked Chief of Staff Kang to deliver it quietly to his office herself.

"You didn't look at the contents, did you?"

When Chief Kang asked, I shook my head.

"I wrote it from the heart. If I don't read it, there's no one left to."

"And if no reply comes?"

"That's fine. Design leaves plenty behind even without explanation."

That afternoon, I crossed paths with the councilor in the council building's corridor.

The moment he saw me, he met my eyes just once and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bowed his head, ever so slightly. Not a single word passed between us, and I said nothing either.

Whether that one brief greeting held every answer within it, I cannot say.

Only that in that moment, I felt it again: politics, sometimes, moves not on what is said, but on what is sensed. And that sense is made not by strategy, but by people.