Antique Chinese and Japanese Porcelain collector's help and info page

GLOSSARY

Numbers

Chinese currency is based on the decimal system, and consists of paper money and coins. The smallest coin is 1 fen, 10 fen make up a jiao (also called mao) and 10 jiao (or mao) make up a yuan. Paper money comes in six denominations - 5 jiao, 1 yuan, 2 yuan, 50 yuan, and 100 yuan. Because ordinary Chinese numbers are easy to write, and therefore easy to forge, a different set of Chinese characters is used for numbers on banknotes and other financial dealings (right column).

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