Veggie in China

I have lived most of my life as a Vegetarian and now a strong activist for Vegetarianism. I have never been able to appreciate the killing of any animal for the purpose of food.
Veggie way of life for a traveller is a real hassle. I use to have a real hard time initially finding veggie food for myself .
Once I was travelling in central China, Ningbo precisely and at that time, the city had just one hotel and the hotel had only the one receptionist, who could speak a little English. So for every request of mine, this little girl was brought in for the interpretation .
Now settling for my dinner in the evening, the menu was cast in Chinese language and receptionist was already back home and the waiter would not speak English. Fully grounded.
So, somehow I managed to call the chef using sign language. And followed him to the kitchen and checked his inventory and luckily could find Potatoes and onions and cauliflower.
Cook, that I am myself, I cut a potato and an onion and some cauliflower and asked him to then load it on the wok and 15 Min's later , all spiced up my food was on table.
But since then, I learned the survival technique and have never missed my own veggie curry food anywhere. Every single hotel was kind enough to take my instructions for the next veggie dish.
The only thing I make sure now is that I carry my own Garam Masala and also my own Indian Tea. This makes travel real spicy .

Interestingly , in those times, say 1990, there use to be only one veggie restaurant in Shanghai and to my surprise, was very full on our arrival.

I understand now, Veggie is getting more popular in China. Though Chinese veggie still means chicken and all birds are OK.

I am still an activist for veggie and recommend that people should at least make one day of the week , the veggie diet day. This itself will be a big step forward.

Veggie power is a Latent Power and I will make a post on this some other time