THE OTSU INCIDENT, PART I

My suddenly crowded work schedule today has absolutely nothing to do with the title hereof, other than that it obviated my plan to visit and post herein about the Otsu Museum exhibit on the little-known Otsu Incident, in which Crown Prince Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia, on a pleasure tour of Japan in 1891, while touring Otsu at the southernmost end of Lake Biwa (Japan's first capital, just over the mountains here from Kyoto) was attacked and seriously wounded by one of his sword-wielding Japanese police guards. This reputedly was an important pretext to the Russo-Japanese war, which fanned Japan's colonial ambitions. We all know where that led. I will try to make it to the exhibit next week; but for now, for a fascinating read, search Google for Mikao Usui+Otsu Incident, hit translate if you don't read French, scroll down a bit and read the amazing account of the Japanese doctor who witnessed the event and gave Nicholas emergency treatment. He was the doctor who later founded Reiki, a form of which he used in treating Nicholas. Another historically fascinating aspect is that the cloths and bandages used to treat the wound were saved, and recently sampled for DNA to authenticate the remains of then-Emperor Nicholas and his family, murdered by the Bolsheviks, who had grown in power as Nicholas waned with the humbling loss of the R-J War. The tangles of history come full circle, just down the road!!