Someone who is “on active service” participates in military action as a member of the armed force, like the sender of the above mail. The sender must have something very urgent to tell the recipient so, besides posting by air, he also added a note – “Chop, chop!”
Originated in Pidgin English, chop-chop can still be heard today. Bear in mind that the meaning of chop-chop was unrelated to chop as a seal or brand. The expression is always used in duplicated form, meaning hurry up or do something quickly. Martin Booth, novelist, moved to Hong Kong in 1952 at the age of seven. He was keen to learn everything about Hong Kong, including Pidgin English, the language he used to communicate with the servants and other Chinese. Chop-chop must be one of the words he knew. However, he recalled that: “It was impressed upon me that I should never make unreasonable demands of Wong or Ah Shun and I was never to say Fide! Fide! or Chop! Chop! (Quick! Quick!) at him.”1 (Booth 2005: 150) Fide is a transliteration of Cantonese 快啲 (faai3 di1).
In the 19th century, it was also essential for visitors, traders, or residents in Canton, Shanghai, or Hong Kong to possess some knowledge of Pidgin English. Visiting the Ling-nam (嶺南, covering mainly Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan), Benjamin Couch Henry remembered hearing people talking in Pidgin English as below.2
My wantchee you catchee chow-chow chop-chop
Man-man my waitee dat coolie come back, he belong one piece fulo man too muchee chin-chin joss
There are three reduplicated forms here: chow-chow, chop-chop and chin-chin. Chop-chop obviously meant ‘quickly.’ Chin-chin was derived from Chinese 請 ‘to invite, to request, please’, pronounced as cing2 in Cantonese and qǐng in Mandarin. Chin-chin joss meant worshipping gods. Chow-chow could mean different things depending on the context in which it was used. As a noun, it could refer to ‘food,’ or a miscellaneous of things; as a verb, it denoted ‘to eat.’ The phrases dat coolie ‘the coolie’ and one piece fulo man ‘a foolish man’ reminded us that that and one, besides being demonstratives,could also function as the definite article the and the indefinite article a(n) respectively in PidginEnglish. Fool was often pronounced with an extra vowel added at the end; thus, giving fulo. Though generally the copula verb to be was absent in the pidgin, the word belong helped indicate the relation between the subject (he) and its complement (one piece fulo man) in the sentence.
On another occasion, an exchange in a silk shop like this.
More better you cum shaw my one piece, sillik numba one look see
No can my makee too muchee losee, you no likee, maskee, my chin-chin you come back.
Cum shaw was a borrowing from Hokkien, a dialect spoken in the Fujian province. The spelling was modelled on 感謝 ‘to thank, to be grateful’ pronounced kám-siā in Hokkien. The transaction was unsuccessful because the quality of the silk was numba one ‘the best quality’ and the shopkeeper did not want to lose profit by giving a big discount to the customer. ‘Never mind’ was rendered as maskee.
After looking at the use of chop-chop, let’s talk about its origin. It was believed that the word had a Chinese origin. Several words in Cantonese correspond to the meanings of ‘quick,’ namely 急 (gap1), 速 (cuk1), and 匆 (cung1). All of them can be reduplicated as shown in the following sentences.
你做咩急急腳咁走？nei5 zou6 me1 gap1 gap1 goek3 gam2 zau2
You-do-what-quick-quick-foot-like that-run
‘Why did you leave in such a hurry?’
速速磅唔好兩頭望 。cuk1 cuk1 bong6 m4 hou2 loeng5 tau4 mong6
Quick-quick-pay-not-good-two-head-look
‘Hurry up and pay. There should be no more delay.’
佢成日都來去匆匆。keoi5 sing4jat6 dou1 loi4 heoi3 cung1 cung1
(s)he-always-also-go-come-quick-quick
‘(S)he is always in a hurry.’
The second example is an idiom in Cantonese. 磅 is a shortened form of 磅水 (bong6 seoi2), a slang for ‘pay up.’
The opposite meaning of quick(ly) is of course slow(ly). This was illustrated in the first Pidgin example: Man-man my waitee dat coolie come back. Man-man was based on Cantonese 慢慢 (maan6 maan2), which expresses ‘slowly, in a while, take your time.’ The postcard on the left, with the caption Man-Man di!, was sent from Tientsin to Italy.
Thomas W. Knox (1835–1896) was a journalist and traveller. On hearing the use of chop-chop and man-man in southern and northern China, he observed that:3
“Chop-chop means “fast,” “quick,” “immediately;” man-man means “slowly,” “slower,” “gently” in the south of China; while at Hankow, on the Yang-Tse, it means exactly the reverse. At Canton or Swatow, if you say man-man to your boatman, they will cease rowing or will proceed very lightly; say the same thing to your boatman at Hankow or Ichang, and they will pull away with redoubled energy.”
Knox’s remark pointed out an important fact in China, that is, different dialects are spoken in different provinces. While there is a uniform writing system for Chinese, the spoken forms of dialects show varying degrees of similarities or differences in pronunciation, meaning, and grammar. Take the case of man-man as an example. As mentioned, in Cantonese man-man represents the character 慢 ‘slow,’ pronounced as maan6; however, in Shanghai the same character is pronounced as [mɛ13]. On the other hand, the character 猛, meaning ‘dense’ and pronounced as [maŋ13], is phonetically more similar to man-man.4 Since identical or similar pronunciations may refer to different characters (and likely different meanings) in different dialects, this may explain why saying man-man in Canton and Shanghai produced the opposite results noted by Knox. Finally, it should not be forgotten that Mandarin Chinese was also widely spoken. In the Mandarin dialect, 慢 ‘slow,’ pronounced màn, is similar to Cantonese in sound and meaning. The last sound di could be the suffix 的 or 地 (Mandarin: de), which are used to form adverbials. Cantonese also has a similar suffix. The di in fidi in the quotation from Martin Booth represents 啲 (di1).
1 Booth, Martin. 2004. Gweilo: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood. London: Doubleday.
2 Henry, Benjamin Couch. 1886. Ling-Nam or Interior views of southern China. London: S. W. Partridge and Co.
3 Knox, Thomas Wallace. 1879. John; or, Our Chinese Relations: A Study of our Emigration and Commercial Intercourse with the Celestial Empire. New York: Harper & Brothers.
4 閔家驥 、范曉、朱川 、張嵩岳. 1986. 《簡明吳方言词典》. 上海: 上海辞书出版社.