This article shows how distance between localities becomes a discursive strategy in the global process of transculturation. It traces the creation and circulation of a mid-19th to early-20th century myth surrounding a Buddhist arhat (in Chinese, Luohan) statue in Guangzhou, China, claimed to depict Marco Polo, alongside its Venetian replica, involving Chinese clerics, tour guides, and intellectuals, and Western expatriates, travelers, geographers, Sinologists, and politicians. The history of the statues was adapted by various forces, particularly Italian (and, more generally, Western) nationalists and imperialists, and Chinese reformists. Among the diverse agents was a common discursive strategy: to legitimize their arguments, mediating agents from both the West and China sought references and endorsements from the distant—and therefore immediately absent—Other, thus positioning the statue’s transcultural (hi)story to the Other’s side. In this way, they occupied an interpreting position themselves to turn historiography of the Other into historical teleology for the self.