You seem to be insinuating that the negative reaction towards Chan was mostly from the Japanese, but I can tell you that in the section I was in, where about 1/5th of the audience was Japanese (southwest corner, second row), the booing was coming from the non-Japanese crowd. The Japanese were sitting rather awkwardly. Well except I booed loud when the score came out (defo not during the interview/ medal ceremony), but I've been living overseas too long. A French lady sitting next to me with a Canadian husband and I talked, and she was booing and I told him no disrespect to Canada. So that's that in my section.
Being amongst the passionate crowd was the best experience of live skate events I've ever had!! I cried and had goosebumps for one skater after another. KVP, Joubert, Hannyu and Takahashi. This is after all why I'm a fan of this sport!
I admire Chan's skating, I spoke to him on Friday and seemed like a super nice guy. I felt goosebumps watching him and Takahashi fly so fast in the 6-minute warm-up on Friday. But last night, I felt disconnected. Blame my potential patriotic bias etc, but that's how I felt. And seeing PE and IN in the protocols now, I'm thinking were the judges in the same building last night, really?
Thanks for the in-person report! And I'm glad to hear that it wasn't the Japanese who were booing. (I had just assumed it was the locals, or the general audience, not a particular nationality who were booing, but I'm glad to get confirmation of that.) One of the lovely aspects of skating is that people who attend live events might have a chance to meet the athletes, or at least to see them close up. I once went to Wimbledon, and there was no question of meeting any of the players. And that was long enough ago so security wasn't an issue.