I thought that counting in Chinese was easy until I tried to figure out the details of my lease. All of the numbers, it seems, were written quite differently. Turns out that there is a formal way of writing numbers. These formal characters for numbers are mostly used on official documents and cheques.

The complexity of each character serves to deter forgery and alteration. For example, 一萬元 could very easily be changed to 十萬; the difference between $10,000 and $100,000! The formal 壹萬元 is very difficult to modify.