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This was all the worshipping space that there was in the nunnery: the remaining five-eighths of the building was occupied by living space.
The whole of the first section, and the front part of the second section, formed the living quarters of the resident nuns. The back part of the first section was cut off with a wooden screen wall to form a bedchamber, or Fong, for the abbess. This chamber had a ceiling, thus forming a cockloft above it. This cockloft was accessible by a ladder from within the abbess's chamber: it is likely that this cockloft was always used, as now, as storage space.
The bedchambers of the other nuns were in the front part of the second section. Two bedchambers were provided, one at ground level, and the other in the cockloft above it, with a store-room behind, which could possibly have been used as a further chamber if need be. The ground floor chamber, and the cockloft above it, both have tiny shuttered windows - the lower chamber also has a single-brick opening. The store-room chamber is lit only by what light comes through the door from the Tin Tseng. At present, the ground floor chamber has two trestle beds in it, with no beds in the other chambers: this probably merely represents a convenience for the recently deceased single elderly resident nun.
The area in front of the abbess's chamber was the main reception hall. This was originally furnished with a couple of chairs and side tables for reception of honoured guests, and some of the original furniture seems to survive amid the rubbish which fills much of the area now. This part of the living space is cut off from the front part of the first section by a screen wall with arches. This front part, or lower hall, was where the daily work of the nuns took place, where they ate, and where the equipment they used for growing vegetables was stored. A rice-pounder is let into the floor against the outer wall. A small partitioned-off area here was probably the nuns' latrine. The nuns had their own direct access to the road by a door in this section. The living quarters of the nuns connected with the rest of the nunnery only through the doorway into the Side Hall with the Earth God altar: at night the nuns could bar this door and close themselves off in their own quarters without worrying themselves about anyone in the guest quarters or coming in off the road.
The guest quarters were in the fourth section. The back part of this section is cut off by a brick wall to form a bedchamber. This has a cockloft