Occupying a unique geographic position, Southwest China has witnessed frequent ethnic encounters, trade exchanges, empire power expansions, and foreign knowledge transmission. It is in this region that Ming intellectuals composed travelogues offering remarkable literary/cultural insights, and Xu Xiake youji is one such classic. In fact, such is the influence of this travelogue that a scholarly field named Xuxue has been developed for its further investigation. In addition to Han/non-Han dualistic critical considering and intellectual self-reflection, it is also significant to delve into the subtle connotations in this travelogue and how the writer depicted the literary essence along with the human-space interactions. This paper will center on Xu Hongzu’s explorations and narrations in the southwest, and shed light on Xu’s cultural contacts with non-Han people. By doing so, we can reveal the travelogue’s emotional dimensions and its structure of feelings, thus reconsidering Xu’s writing position and the make-up of his discourse of southwestern knowledge, experience, and imagination.