Problem with typing pinyin (chinese)

Hey guys, just got myself new MBP 13.
Everything is perfect except for one thing. I installed simple chinese characters support. It works fine, but after it goes to sleep or I close the lead, or after an hour or two of use, I choose pinyin option again, but when I type, it doesn't reflect chinese characters and just types in English, as normal.
The only solution to fix this is to restart, after which it seems to type normally again. Any idea what causing it? and how to get rid of it.
Also, is there any good 3rd party program for pinyin, like google pinyin for windows?

 

Ok, here is the thing.
Sometimes when I type chinese pinyin, it shows me a submenu where I can choose the character I want. So, for example if I type "wo" it shows me 3-5 characters that are under this combo. But sometimes, I type "wo", and it just sits there in english underlined. so it doesn't give me any choice, and it automatically transform into chinese character only after I press enter or push 1 or 2 or 3... and since it doesn't show me what chinese characters are associated with 1 or 2 or .... it is quite uncomfortable.
this is first time in my life to use MacOS X, so I am sure that it is somewhere in prefrences, I can change that. I tried to play with options, ect, but doent really do anything.

 

get "fun input toy"

Fun Input Toy ????

 

Thanks, I will give it a try. Have anyone tried using QIM? you gotta pay for that one, but is it any good?