Back when my wife and I were still dating, she found a cheap ring she loved. It was just a normal jewelry ring with her favorite stones in it, not a fancy engagement ring or anything. But she loved it so much, she told me that if I ever proposed to her, she gave me permission to steal it from her and re-present it as an engagement ring. Which I did.
I felt bad about it though. I took the ring to propose, but my plans fell through and it took me a few more days to arrange a new proposal plan. She had forgotten all about our conversation, so the whole time she was tearing the house apart, looking for her favorite ring. She loved that I "found" it and gave it back to her with a proposal.
I lived in Japan for a few years in the early 2000s. According to my Japanese coworkers, school children are given 100-200 Kanji to memorize by the end of the school year, where they'll be tested on them. This goes on every year, from their equivalent of K-12th grades. By the time they're ready for college, they should know enough Kanji to be proficient in reading/writing.
Supposedly, the average Japanese person knows between 2,000 and 5,000 Kanji off the top of their head, so either my coworkers low-balled the number, or Japanese people continue learning Kanji through college and into adulthood.