The law he was talking about relates to part time work for people on work visas or foreign expert permits. They are allowed to take part time jobs as long as their main contract doesn't forbid it, and they must declare all taxable income.
It's still illegal to work on a student visa

If you're looking to collect from Chinese customers, definitely use zhifubao, which is the main payment system for taobao. It has by far the highest penetration in the country. People can put money on their accounts at their bank or at any post office.

I don't know how easy it is to set up for non-taobao purchases, though.

About the satellite signal you're seeing in nice hotels in Shanghai (Kunming too). They're part of a legal network set up for hotels and foreign expert dorms (functionally extinct) as well as certain organizations (Xinhua and the like). If you are a foreigner with a residence permit, not just a visa, you are technically entitled to use this signal, but you have to fill out a whole lot of paperwork, pay some hefty installation fees, get written permission from your apartment to install a dish, and then pay monthly fees. A friend tried to apply for it a long time ago, and then gave up and bought an illegal dish.

If you get an illegal dish, you probably won't get into any trouble, but you also don't have any guarantees that it won't stop working a few months down the road.

I also recommend checking out the various Muslim restaurants in town. They definitely don't cook with pork fat, and there are a couple of good ones that cook with organic foods.

The main thing to consider when eating out is what they cook the food in. Plenty of restaurants still cook with pork fat, so just ordering veggies isn't enough.

Aside from the bigger, fancier places, most restaurants don't mind you popping your head into the kitchen. If the place cooks with fat, they may promise to just use vegetable oil for your food, but you can expect the cooks to ignore that.
Also, ask about the soup stock. Plenty of soups are cooked in vegetable stock, but just as many are cooked in marrow stock.
And then, of course, if you just say "no meat", it usually isn't enough, because for a lot of Chinese waitresses with little vegetarian experience, that means that fish, eggs and sometimes ham are okay.

All in all, it shouldn't be too difficult, but it will definitely put your Chinese skills to work.
There are some good shops that sell vegetarian foodstuffs near the Yuantong Temple, but I'd give their vegetarian restaurant a pass. I do remember a decent veg restaurant down in Guanshang, near the airport. Maybe someone can chime in with the actual name and address...
Happy hunting.