imo Traditional written Chinese (what the Japanese call Kanji and that's used outside of China) is easier than simplified written Chinese. While hand writing traditional Chinese is harder, more complicated characters are made of other characters with a related meaning. Consequently, you can guess what the word means. Conversely with simplified, there less sub characters, so there's a lot of lost context. Easier to write by hand is also not so much of an advantage anymore given computers.
If you're going to learn to read or write, learn traditional. It's easy to read simplified, but not so great the other way around.
I'm not sure what you mean: are you claiming that...
> While hand writing traditional Chinese is harder, more complicated characters are made of other characters with a related meaning.
..."traditional" characters (which do not equal to Japanese Shinjitai!) is easier to write but harder to read, or...
> It's easy to read simplified, but not so great the other way around.
...it's easier to read but harder to write?
There is some truth in your claim: simplification does discard some context and can be harder to read. But that's only the case for irregular cases (notable example being 漢 to 汉). In many cases they are highly systematic and phono-semantic roots are preserved (e.g. 訁 to 讠, so no information is lost), or characters are so frequently used that you will have to memorize anyway (e.g. 飛 to 飞). Pronunciation-based simplification (e.g. 後 after, behind to 后 empress) is debatable, but it also tends to occur in frequently used characters.
Sorry, I didn't realize that the Japanese simplified kanji.
> ...it's easier to read but harder to write?
Harder to write because you have more lines and characters to draw. Harder to read because there are less sub-characters due to there being less lines. Judging from what you wrote, you probably understand my point just adding it just in case.
Yeah, I've been gone a long time and I've been assimilated i.e. I don't read and write often anymore so you're probably right.
> or characters are so frequently used that you will have to memorize anyway
This is why I feel it makes it harder, especially for less common words. It's just more unnecessary work.
If you're going to learn to read or write, learn traditional. It's easy to read simplified, but not so great the other way around.