The poet, philosopher, and traveler Victor Segalen (1878–1919) significantly influenced our understanding of cultural diversity. In his *Essay on Exoticism*, he articulates a distinctive concept of the world’s structure and reflects on the perception of otherness. Rejecting tourism and colonialism—the most prevalent modes of engagement with non-Western civilizations and cultures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the author seeks to answer the question: is it possible to truly comprehend the Other through direct sensory experience? This reflective journal became one of the first texts to critique globalization, and Segalen’s ideas laid the groundwork for modern research approaches in ethnology.