@Peregrina @Emilyontmoor What do the Malay Chinese community speak? I studied with some years ago, and I know that they said that Chinese people used to mock them for their expressions and accents. Not real Chinese.
Did somebody call? 
Get ready for a LONG derail - feel free to scroll past
The historic Chinese diaspora are very complicated in SE Asia. There were multiple waves of migration from China to SE Asia for differing purposes, from different Chinese provinces and they acted in varying ways when they arrived.
The dialects and languages spoken in parts of the Malay Peninsula reflect the complicated history.
Chinese migrants from later periods (say 19th - early 20th century) were often "shipped in" as labourers for farming, tin-mining, and rubber-tapping. Many came from villages in Fujian and Guangdong, bringing their local gang disputes with them to Malaya which helped to decide where each group would settle. Therefore (roughly speaking) in northern parts of the Peninsula, the majority of settlers were from Fujian so Hokkien (as it is called in SE Asia) became the main dialect for everybody. In the middle part of the Peninsula, the majority of settlers came from Guangdong and so Cantonese is the main dialect. In the southern part of the Peninsula, a different group of Hokkien-speakers settled. Obviously people came from other parts of China with their own dialects, just that they would also have to learn the majority local one in order to get on with work/shopping/socialising.
The Nyonya (or Peranakan Chinese) are considered the "oldest" arrivals in SE Asia - they came for trade or politics in relatively small numbers as early as the 15th century onwards, and initially intermarried with local Malay gentry. For obvious reasons often they were wealthier, more educated and privileged than the later waves of labour migration - they were able to take on administrative roles, etc. Very approximately, the Nyonya population is based around historic trading ports - usually considered to be the British Crown Colonies of Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Nyonya people speak: their ancestral dialect of Chinese, the majority local dialect of the area, and (reflecting their "standing" in colonial society) English and Malay. Penang and Singapore Nyonyas tend to speak fluent English as their additional language. Malacca Nyonyas tend to speak Malay as their first language, with Chinese dialect as the secondary language.
Because the Chinese migrants were either uneducated recent-ish labourers from poor background, or had been "away" from China and immersed in SE Asian culture for centuries, all these groups would have lost fluency and vocabulary, and developed a local SE Asian set of accents and unique way of speaking incorporating the background soup of other languages spoken around them. So yes, a bit of a pidgin. In fact, several pidgins developed with different language bases.
It wasn't until post-independence in the mid-20th century when SE Asian countries started looking East instead of West that up-to-date "proper" Chinese language (i.e. Mandarin) education became really popular and widespread among the [ethnic Chinese] general population. For example, Singapore made a massive push, making Mandarin Chinese compulsory in education, plus a huge public information campaign with the slogan "Speak Chinese, It Helps." Singapore being so influential, Mandarin soon also became the majority dialect spoken in the southern part of the Peninsula.
Now ask me what I speak if you want another LONG read