To survive such a lawless foreign land, the pragmatic and resourceful one opened eateries and laundries instead.Īmong the successful restaurateurs were two cousins Ah Ying and Ah Sing. When they found gold, they were invariably killed by claim jumpers. Many Chinese joined the 1849 California Gold Rush. Your father is not the only person now on record as having used the expression "chop chop suey suey." From " Chop Suey" in Katherine Chew, The Magical Dumplings and Other Chinese Fables (2008): This evolved into "chop-chop" and was quickly picked up by the Englishmen who traveled the Asian seas. In Mandarin, the word is jí, and in Malay it's chepat. In an 1838 article, "Chinese English," the magazine defined "chop-chop" as "the sooner the better," but made no mention of the phase being rude or curt.Īccording to Hobson-Jobson: The Definitive Glossary of British India, the noted Anglo-Indian dictionary published in 1886, the phrase originates from the Cantonese word kap, or 急 (which means "make haste").
Two years later, it would also appear in The Penny Magazine, an illustrated English publication geared toward the working class. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first usage of "chop chop" in print to an 1834 article in the Canton (Ohio) Register. Several etymological dictionaries trace the origins of the word to a version of pidgin English used on ships (and later by Chinese servants and traders who regularly interacted with foreigners). Wikipedia and The Phrase Finder both talk about the etymology of chop chop, meaning "hurry up" or "quickly, quickly!"
Perhaps your dad added the "suey suey" part on his own, maybe for humorous effect?
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