Character amnesia
It is difficult to establish exactly how many different Chinese characters are in use today; the new HSK, a widely used proficiency test for Standard Chinese as a second language, tests over 2,600 different characters, whilst in 1988 the People's Republic of China published the "List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese" which contains 7,000 different characters. In Japan, where a smaller set of characters are in general usage, the Japanese Ministry of Education prescribes the teaching of 2,136 kanji in primary and secondary school in a list called the jōyō kanji, meaning "regular-use Chinese characters".
Holy Emperor Guan's True Scripture to Awaken the World
"The True Scripture to Awaken the World" is written in simple Classical Chinese, and on the whole it doesn't contain more than 700 Chinese characters. In the first twelve lines, its writing style follows the three-character rule that is popular among other educational Chinese classics, such as "Three Character Classic" and "Standards for being a Good Pupil and Child", then it expands to the four-character rule of Chinese idioms, also known as Chengyu. Usually accompanying the scripture are examples of those who have benefited from the scripture.