when I was took a term of Chinese in the 1950s, the tutor, from Shanghai, used hao bu hao (lit. good not good) exactly as an ordinary how-are-you greeting` -- so it might serve as hubba hubba origin -- but hubba is a very strange vocalic reading of the hao of hao bu hao (how boo how or something like it, how boo, how 'bout that, etc,. you'd expect) RK