Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

Today’s cool tool is not actually a tool, but a food — more specifically, a fruit. It may, in fact, be my new favorite fruit! Introducing the SUMO CITRUS…

The Sumo Citrus is a Japanese hybrid of mandarin, Satsuma and navel oranges. With a distinctive top knot that is reminiscent of a sumo wrestler’s hairstyle (hence the name), it was developed over the span of 30 years and recently became one of the most prized citrus fruits in Japan and Korea, fetching up to $8 per fruit! Called the Dekopon in Japan and Hallabong in Korea, it is finally available in the U.S. thanks to a grower in California who uses the same exact standards of the original Japanese farmer.

According to its website:

SUMO CITRUS^® is unique in that it is large, seedless, exceptionally juicy, very sweet and easy to peel. Its homely exterior belies delicious individual sections bursting with delicate flavor.

The unique size, shape and look of SUMO CITRUS^® distinguish it from other mandarins.

Its Asian origin makes it exotic, but since it is grown here in California, food safety and freshness are ensured at a fraction of the price that it costs in Japan.

My mother and I happened upon this fruit at a trip to our local H-Mart (a Korean grocery chain) over the weekend. The store had a big display set up with a girl giving out samples of the fruit — how could we resist? Once my mother had a bite, she gave a piece to Claire (who responded with her ham face) and told me that I had to try it too.

The fruit was a bit pricey at $15 for a box of 7, but we were already sold. We didn’t even know about the other qualities of the Sumo Citrus that I will be describing below, but the taste alone was THAT GOOD! It is the PERFECT blend of sweet and tart, with a surprising amount of juice that will absolutely delight your taste buds.

When I shared the fruit with J later that night, I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to peel. The bumpy and loose rind made it exceptionally easy to prepare for eating, and sectioning it was practically effortless due to the very little amount of albedo, or rag (the white part of citrus). And unlike most other citrus fruits, the Sumo Citrus left very little to no juice on my hands and my fingers did not become sticky.

According to SFGate, this is only Sumo’s second season, and is only expected to run until the end of March. So what are you waiting for? Go check out the list of retailers that carry Sumo Citrus, and go try this deliciousness for yourself — I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

Most of my readers know that we have been teaching Claire three languages since she was born. And at this point, at 16 months of age, she understands Cantonese Chinese the best, and more than half the words she speaks are Cantonese.

I have no problem with this. I believe that Chinese — regardless of the dialect — is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and that our children having a good foundation in Chinese will not only help them more easily learn additional languages in the future (because you use both hemispheres of the brain with Chinese and other tonal languages), it may also be benficial if they choose to study music.

I actually took two semesters of Mandarin Chinese in college, but I only recall a few phrases here and there.  However, I still remember my very first class clearly, when my professor showed us how, by saying “ma” in different tones, you can ask, “Did mother scold the horse?”

媽駡馬嗎?
(mā mà mă ma?)

Despite my musical training, I still have difficulty differentiating between the different tonal sounds in the Chinese language. And while Mandarin only has 4 tones, Cantonese has between 6 and 9. The exact number depends on whom you ask, which makes it that much more difficult in this blogger’s opinion.

Perhaps it is easier to learn music if a tonal language is your first language, than vice-versa? That, or I am seeking justification for my difficulty in understanding Chinese. (But then again, I have always been horrible with languages in general.)

Anyway, the real reason for this post is because I recently came across a nifty scan from a Chinese instructional book which illustrates just how difficult Chinese can be:

(image source)

And, just in case anyone is curious, the name of the poem is “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den” by Zhao Yuanren. According to Redditor robo_t:

The poem was written in the early 20th century as both an: 1. argument against the romanization of classical Chinese 2. argument for the romanization of modern vernacular Chinese

Writing out classical Chinese often yields results like “shi shi shi shi shi shi shi”, thus making it completely uncomprehensible. A few literary movements in the early twentieth century moved Chinese away from using a single syllable per word to having compound words. This language development can actually be credited with helping modernize China and closing the gap between the literary elites and the masses.

Example: Classical – 睡 – shui – to sleep Modern – 睡觉 – shui jiao – to sleep

Adding a second character clarifies the meaning by adding a verb-noun phrase!

Apparently, most Chinese people would only understand this poem if they read it, not if they heard it.

…and the use of circle lenses, wigs, and double eyelid tape/glue.

I have talked about the power of makeup before, and some of these Asian girls seem to take it a little too far!

Via Absolutely Fobulous.

This weekend, as he does every year, J will be decorating our home for Lunar New Year with various Chinese paper cutouts and prints which are meant to ward off bad spirits and bring good fortune to the household in the new year.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Chinese culture, the Lunar New Year is a BIG deal in China. Workers usually take an entire month off so that they can travel to be with their families, and the weeks-long celebrations are loud, exuberant, and can be pretty intense. Since J’s birthday falls in the same week as the Lunar New Year Day this year, he will be taking the entire week off next week to properly celebrate both.

Koreans are not quite as into the Lunar New Year as the Chinese are, so I usually just sit back and watch him do his thing and only participate when asked to. However, when I happened upon these adorable paper crafts by Canon, I just knew that I needed to add to our New Year decorations with them.

The best part? They are all FREE and available on the Canon website! All you need to do is print them out and follow the accompanying instructions.

Message Dolls (Wealth Dolls)
Chinese Lantern
String Decoration: Lion Dance	String Decoration: Fortune
Chinese Dragon	Lion Dance

I had no idea such a fun section existed on the electronics giant’s website. I am particularly in love with the Milky Way Decoration Set, which is inspired by one of my favorite tales from childhood. (I thought for sure that this was a Korean fairytale, but apparently the same story exists in China and Japan too.) You can be sure that I will be making it for — or even with — my girls in the near future.

Be sure to check out the rest of Paper Crafts by Canon site for more great projects! 

I have decided to implement some regularity to this blog. I believe that not only will it give readers something to look forward to on a weekly basis, it will also force me to be more creative as well as provide a focus when I am struggling with writer’s block.

The new schedule will not be too rigid, because anyone with kids — heck, without kids too — knows that life is anything but predictable. So for now, I plan on doing the following:

• Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.
• Bloggy Thursdays, where I share with my fellow bloggers tips and tutorials to maximize your own blog. While I do not consider myself an expert, I do like to think that after 10+ years of blogging — in addition to my technical knowledge — I know more than the average blogger when it comes to making your blog better and more attractive to readers. (Except for content. I have no real tips on content. ). Since I currently use WordPress and it happens to be the most popular blogging platform in the world, these tips will mostly cater to the WordPress crowd.
• Reverent Sundays, where I write about an aspect of my faith. This can deal with recent books I have read on Christianity, my thoughts on religion and current issues, as well as particular messages I find touching and/or powerful. I am aware that most of my readers are not religious, and that is fine — you are more than welcome to not read these posts if they make you uncomfortable, enrage you, or bore you to tears. I am open to debates and discussions in the comments section as long as everyone remains respectful.

Now, on to my first installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays…

The two most-used appliances in my kitchen are our rice cooker and the Panasonic NC-EH30PC 3-Quart Electric Thermo Pot.

The rice cooker is a no-brainer for an Asian household that eats rice practically every day. But the electric water boiler and dispenser? I personally had no idea such things even existed before I got married.  However, a water boiler/dispenser was the first appliance that my MIL bought for us and it quickly became one of my favorite items in the kitchen.

We use the Panasonic Electric Thermo Pot to easily prepare tea and other hot drinks, as well as instant dishes that require boiling-hot water. It became indispensable when we had babies — instead of purchasing a bottle warmer or running the bottle under hot water from the sink, we just fill a mug with hot water from the Thermo Pot and let the frozen/refrigerated bottle sit in there for a couple of minutes.

As you can see in the picture above, there are 4 temperatures to choose from (we usually keep it at 190°), and the built-in sensor ensures that your water will stay at that temperature unless specified. The “Lock/Unlock” button guards against unintended dispensing (it automatically locks after just a few seconds after dispensing), and the power cord is the magnetic kind that breaks away easily under pressure. Additionally, the Thermo Pot automatically shuts off if the water level gets too low.

J can’t believe that I never heard of these types of electric water boiler/dispenser units until I got married. He says that they are a staple in all Chinese households — mostly for the tea — and wonders why not all western households have them.

My MIL had actually purchased for us a Tiger brand when we first got married, but it broke after about three years of continued use. The specific model we had has since been discontinued, so we got a Zojirushi brand to replace it. However, Zojirushi had one major flaw: there is a big hole at the bottom of the boiler where particulates get caught, so it constantly needed to get cleaned.

My MIL ended up comparing various brands in person before choosing this Panasonic version. We still like the discontinued Tiger one the best, but this is a close second. (It also doesn’t hurt that the Panasonic is the cheapest of the three brands! )

I love my Panasonic Electric Thermo Pot so much that I gifted it to my parents for Christmas two years ago, and they in turn liked it so much that they purchased an extra one so that they could keep one at home and another at the store.

The Panasonic Electric Thermo Pot comes in three sizes: 2.3 quart, 3 quart, and 4.1 quart.

Disclaimer: the links in this post are Amazon Associates links, where I will get a small percentage of the purchase price if anyone orders through these links.