Something similar took place with all the other borrowings. Continental models in everything from architecture to music, religion, painting, governing institutions, and metallurgy were imported and grafted onto native models. Sometimes the result was a considerable improvement on the original. Even the Chinese, who were loath to grant that outer barbarians could do anything better than they, acknowledged that the Japanese had perfected paper-making and dyeing beyond anything in China itself. Samurai swords were forged of the world’s finest steel until the coming of modern steel-making.
