National culture debates in Malaysia reached a climax in the 1980s. Heightened concerns among Chinese Malaysians were fueled by a perceived widening of the ethnic gap between themselves and Malays, and by their increased exposure to alternative versions of Chinese identity from abroad. Chinese Malaysians called for preservation and acceptance of the lion dance as part of Malaysian culture, continued availability of Chinese language education at all levels, and inclusion of Chinese historical figures in Malaysian state historiography. The responses to these issues among different groups of Chinese Malaysians varied according to the issues' entrenched encoding(s) within multiple cultural schema. While tensions have eased during the 1990s, the culture debates have not entirely ceased.