Harder. Even though they make veggies tasty, it's often cooked in the same oil that they used to cook the meats. 

Cook at home! 

Harder to eat in restaurants. Similar if you just cook at home. 

Harder.

It's not easy being a sanctimonious a-hole and telling everybody how to live their lives if people can't understand what you're saying.

I've never tried vegetarianism but I do go to a veggie restaurant once a week. Great place. As for cooking at home I adhere to the words of Jimmy Carr when having friends over for dinner in always having a vegetarian option, which is "They can make do, or fuck off."

Easier.  Street near my apartment has multiple veggie vendors set up on the sidewalk just about everyday. Excellent, fresh veggies, wide assortment, really cheap. I am squeamish about buying/butchering/cooking meat, so I have cut down meat consumption a lot in the orient.  Meat here in the tier3 towns is just a little too graphic for my tastes. just go to the real markets even in SZ, GZ and you can get an idea of what a real market is.  I'm not an animal rights guy, but I can tell u seeing all those cats/rabbits/snakes/etc. crammed into cages....  hard to eat meat after a real market.  I'm not sanctimonious though, in fact I'm even whatever that word is when u do something you say you are against... cuz I definitely eat meat in the finer restaurants all the time and have done so all my life.  I'm just saying I'm getting more vegetarian as I live in Asia mostly because it's easy for me to get and easy to prepare and cheap (just like me).

It's probably easier, or at least as easy, if you cook yourself. You can buy vegetables everywhere.

I've met a few vegetarians here who were quite strict about their requirements.... the dish couldn't be cooked in the same pan meat had been in etc. They had a difficult time eating out. We would order something - ask for no meat and there would be pork or something sprinkled on top. they could never explain to the staff that it was impossible for them to eat the dish now, even after the waitress took it away and most likely picked the meat out of it.

Not that difficult if you are living next to the temple (both Taoist or Buddhist) and eat there.

No issue if you cook at home - Chinese like vegetable and you will find plenty of varieties in each supermarket or in the vegetable market.

Close to impossible if you eat outside. Chinese usually add some meat (or et least lard) for taste to nearly any dish.

China is certainly not easy country for vegetarians.

Harder in some ways, easier in others.

Harder in that many/most Chinese don't necessarily understand it for the most part as a moral choice. If you ask whether a dish has meat, they might say "no", but mean it has chicken broth, or cooked with lard. Many Chinese also seem to have different ideas about what animals are. When I explained to a staff member that I didn't want to eat any meat, or anything from an animal, she said they could provide me with a fish... because fish apparently grow from trees.

That's most a problem with staff at restaurants. With Chinese friends, when I explain the reason behind being vegan, they do get it (more or less), and are more than willing to help talk to the staff.

Many dishes are essentially vegetarian, but contain small bits of meat. They're easy to be made vegetarian, but you have to tell the staff first (like I've seen cauliflower or tofu dishes with pork bits).

Cooking at home is easier, due to vegetables and tofu (and other not animal-based food) being cheap.

One of the easier parts is also that if I explain that I don't eat meat due to ethical reasons, most Chinese don't become defensive and douchy, claiming that my not eating a hamburger is really me being a terrible sanctimonious person, telling them how to live their lives, etc, because... reasons.

Even finding some meat in a dish that's meat based is like winning the lottery.  I mean meat that you can actually eat.

Unless all you want to eat is a pound of salt and a large cup of old oil and a handful of MSG, Chinese food is such crap.