There are a number of terms in modern English which are directly derived from the Chinese-English pidgin that was used in South China and Shanghai during the period of foreign concessions. Much of this pidgin, used mainly as an intermediary form of communication between the English speaking foreign-nationals and the native Chinese residents of the city. Initially they were Cantonse speakers, but it was later brought to Shanghai and further popularised there.
Phrases such as “chop chop” meaning to hurry or “no can do” were often the result of this pidgin. "Long time no see" is believed to be a calque of the Cantonese 好耐冇見, literally “very long time no see." And of course there’s the word "pidgin” itself, which is a variation on the word “business”. A lot of these words made it into the vernacular of the foreign residents in the settlements in China, and in some cases found their way into the language more generally as slang as people left China or travelled in between.
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