Trying to identify bottle / vase

[pmurphy]

Hi, I am grasping at straws here.....
I'm trying to identify an old bottle / vase that was found in a storage closet among my grandmother's possessions when she passed away about 25 years ago.  I thought it was unusual and not something that she would collect so I've kept it all this time.  Her parents are of English descent and she was born and raised in a small town in Alberta Canada.
I have been told this "bottle" is 1) of Chinese origin dating about 1920, 2) a Japanese sake bottle and most recently 3) a Chinese vase possibly 3-400 years old.

I'm not looking to sell the item, just trying to determine what it is so that I can understand why it was so import to my grandmother that she kept it.

[Stan]

These look like they are Japanese, at least by the writing, and the shape does not look traditional for Chinese or Japanese, that is about all I can tell you, peter can tell for sure.

[peterp]

Shape: never saw this, neither among Japanese nor Chinese porcelain.
Red green decorations like this were popular in the Ming dynasty. They still are in Japan, they even make new ones.
The characters are an enigma too. I should at least be able to recognize if these are Chinese or Japanese characters, but they do not seem readable. I have seen writing by non-Chinese speakers that was imitating Chinese characters, but this is something different. Not sure, I'm afraid. The writing just looks odd even to a native Chinese speaker who saw this.