Chinese pear bowl / box

I recently purchased this amazing piece made out of wood. It has two very worn wooden handles on the sides and one side has a metal ring of some kind. The rop and bottom rims are trimmed it this metal also. You can tell the wood was hand carved and that the metal pieces were hand made. The wooden handles on the wides have indent ions from years of use. On the side is what appears to be Chinese or Japanese lettering. Any ideas? When I purchased the piece, it had a tag that said "Chinese pear bowl" but no other information.