Went on a hike through Nga Chou Hang Squatter Village to a nearby hill with a friend yesterday. There were people doing "hill cleaning". One of the garbage bags accidentally tripped me over and we heard glass bottle clinking sound. That was the moment we realized those people were dumping all of the old bottles in the nearby area. My friend got triggered immediately and I asked for the permission to search through the unsealed bags.
After a quick search, my friend pulled out an oyster sauce bottle from the pile of garbage bags. Chinese characters reading from right to left as "合勝隆蠔油莊有限公司", while English labelled at the bottle base reads "HOP SING LUNG OYSTER SAUCE CO. LTD.".
With a quick Google search, we found out more information about the company: https://industrialhistoryhk.org/hop-sing-lung-oyster-sauce-合勝隆/
The bubbles within the glass bottle led us to believe it is manufactured no later than the 1970s.
Within minutes, my friend pulled out a second bottle - this time an old medicine bottle with the doctor's name on it:
Can't quite accurately determine the age of this bottle. The top of the bottle, however, does not fit with a screw cap so it had to be sealed with cork back in the ancient days. From this piece of information we believe this bottle is not a youngling either.
He pulled out a third bottle and is the final one, which was a Listerine glass bottle. We couldn't quite determine the age of this one either, so he passed it to me (yay). I don't know Listerine was sold in glass bottle until today. So I guess I am the youngling here (and sorry for my ameteur-bad washing skill). Any help in determining its age is appreciated, thanks :)
One irrelevant question in the end though. I have heard not just once about the controversies on dumping old glass bottles in "hill cleaning" (an example here in Taiwan, only available in Chinese: https://www.thenewslens.com/article/162731). Surely cleaning the hill from human wastes is a good thing, but many argue about the importance of the old relics (given that they are sufficiently old to show historic human activities). May I ask if anyone here has experience in such case? How were similar cases handled in foreign region?
Old bottles
Nice finds! Listerine was sold in glass bottles up till 1994, according to their official website:
https://www.listerine.ca/our-heritage#:~:text=It%20wasn't%20until%201994,mouthwash%20%E2%80%94%20was%20launched%20in%20Canada.
The Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance provides legal protection for discovered relics, but goes on to define 'relics' as objects produced before 1800. My guess is that your finds are from the 1950s-80s- a bit too modern to be protected by our current laws!
Trail Cleanup
Hi hamster,
My name is Nick. I am the one you spoke to on the hill. Thanks for sharing photos of your finds.
We are a group of hikers and coasteerers who do cleanups around Hong Kong. Our primary goal for this site is to re-establish the historic trail connecting Lin Fa Temple/Tin Hau Temple with Red Incense Burner. We are focusing our trash cleanup efforts around that trail so that it can be a more pleasant environment for other hikers.
I am also interested in the history of the site. We tried to separate any interesting items that we find that would not e considered trash (toys, bowls, TVs, casette tapes). Of course we don't have your expertise with glass so we weren't able to determine what's important or not. Most of what we picked up was neglected household rubbish from the 80s and 90s. We are only clearing what we see on the surface, so if anyone was to look around in the area within the last 30 years and found 'modern relics' that they thought were worth keeping, I'm sure they would have done so already.
We will be organising another trash cleanup at the same site in mid June. If you are interested to join us, please let me know and I can send you the details. We can also give instructions to our volunteers to keep any glass with text or interesting features. I didn't get your contact last time, so it would be great to keep in touch in case we find something.
Nick
Listerine bottle
The Listerine bottle appears to have a "tamper evident" ring around the neck. Those weren't common on consumer products until after the 1982 US Tylenol murders. That would date this to 1982 - 1994 (the latter date being when they switched to plastic).
Eno fruit salt
Overheard Eno fruit salt was in common use locally in the 50's. I came across its ad on old newspapers the other day. An example attached below.
As information looked up, Eno has been invented in Newcastle, Britain, which is a bit earlier than Listerine. It started to market around 1865.
Wah Kiu Yat Po (July 1957)
* the eight Chinese characters at the bottom
means : Drink Eno Always, Ensure Health
cure-all medicines
It is said that the inventor, pharmacist James Eno gave away this branded mixture to seafarers at the port and so the brand became known to the world.
It is interesting to know that cure-all medicines once existed also, in western medicine a century ago (not just in the East). Actually, Eno is mainly to cure indigestion.