In 2017 I wrote a book entitled Forget Chineseness: On the Geopolitics of Cultural Identification. For some people, it may have represented a sequel or expansion of a controversial essay I published in 1996, but the book was composed mainly of previous works systematically rewritten and refocused more to make a point about changing times. Nonetheless, as a culturologist trained in anthropology, I continued to argue that basic conceptual definitions of culture remain inherently flawed, which is reflected also by the way our projections of culturalism have been politicized. This has ramifications not only for how we study Chinese speaking societies but also for how notions of identity have distorted the nature of social reality everywhere.