The Fourth Visit
He remembered this place better than I did

How It BeganIt started without a plan

There was never a plan to open an inn. The chief's wife wanted a small studio and a garden, so we went looking for land. We kept looking, and we found this place. Later the chief said: somewhere this good, we should let other people see it too.

And that's how it started.

What He MeantHe wasn't talking about the sheep

Not long ago, a villager who has since become a good friend told me he loves SheepVillage.

I assumed he meant the sheep in the meadow next door, those characters with numbered tags clipped to their ears, some so lively you can't help deciding one of them is "yours." Or maybe the little patch of world in front of the village, so quiet it feels stolen from Cingjing's own clock, where even the wind slows by half a beat.

But that wasn't what he meant.

He said that when work wears him down, he thinks of Cingjing, thinks of SheepVillage. Not for the view, but to catch his breath. He said there were things he felt he could tell me, partly because I'd once given him a few words of encouragement, words he never expected to hear, but has carried with him ever since.

I went quiet for a moment.

Honestly, I'm not sure where I found the courage to say those things. Maybe the mountain taught me. When you live at nearly two thousand meters, with clouds drifting past the window and time moving slower, it becomes easier to say what's true.

Without realizing it, we had come to treat every traveler who arrives here as a kind of close friend. Not only sharing this mountain, but also something harder to name, something we both somehow understand.

More Than an InnWe've never thought of this as just an inn

We have never thought of ourselves as simply running an inn.

What SheepVillage wants to do isn't complicated: to give everyone who comes up the mountain, tired or curious, a reason to set things down. Maybe it's a warm drink. Maybe it's the silent mountain outside the window. Maybe it's just someone willing to truly listen to a single thing you say.

What makes a place worth returning to has never been the view.
It's the feeling of having been treated well here.

真正讓人想回來的地方，從來不是風景。是感覺自己在這裡被好好對待過。

The Fourth VisitHe remembered this place better than I did

We can't claim to remember every villager.

In fact, it was that same friend who later told me, laughing, that on his fourth visit he walked up to greet me with great confidence, and I looked back at him with the face of someone who had absolutely no idea who he was.

He laughed as he told the story, but I felt a little guilty.

That was when we started taking this seriously. We want to remember every villager's name, the corner they loved, the sea of clouds they once said they wanted to come back and see again. We hope that one day, when a familiar face appears at the door again, we can simply say:

「又見面了。」Welcome back.

No need to explain when you last came. No need to introduce yourself again. This isn't service. It's just something we feel is only natural.

We believe that a place able to say those words is a place that has truly been waiting for you to come back.

SheepVillage will remain. The door will stay open. We'll keep waiting for the people who need to come up the mountain and catch their breath.

As long as the mountain is here, so are we.

只要山還在，我們就在。