One of the most festive occasions celebrated by Malay families is making ketupat together at the time of their Muslim holidays.  The children play with sparklers while adults light kerosene torches & gather the ingredients & implements to cook.  The men cook up the delicious spicy peanut sauce, while women weave banana leaves into little cubes that will contain rice for boiling.  Malays love to teach foreigners the skill of how to weave ketupat.  There's two basic shapes for the woven ketupat--called male & female.  Sometimes Westerners find it a bit challenging to learn the right method & come up with ketupat that Malays can't figure out--are they were male or female!