{"id":391129,"date":"2023-05-09T06:06:45","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T20:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=391129"},"modified":"2023-05-09T06:06:45","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T20:06:45","slug":"aofias-culture-shop-keeps-island-kultura-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/aofias-culture-shop-keeps-island-kultura-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop keeps island kultura alive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Owner Aofia Tuiolosega said Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop\u2019s goal is to keep the island culture alive by making mwars, leis, and other cultural items available for purchase. (MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop as its name already denotes tries to keep Pacific island culture alive with the plethora of island- and tribal-theme items they sell.<\/p>\n

Owner Aofia Tuiolosega said their quaint little shop in Chalan Kanoa soft-opened last year but they\u2019re still waiting for their sign to come up to make their opening finally official.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to keep our culture alive. So every item we sell here is a cultural piece. Like the mwars that are from all over the Pacific and Micronesia. These are flower head crowns and leis because mwars and leis are for all occasions and not just for graduations. We have mwars and leis for funerals, weddings, etc. and then all the other little cultural things you see around we make all of these ourselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And with graduation season just around the corner, Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop is expected to get busy in the coming few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mwars have always been our bestsellers because they\u2019re a cultural piece. Locals have been our primary customers but we do get a lot of off-island customers who were originally from here, who miss something like this and even have these shipped to where they are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A multitude of mwars or flower head crowns for all occasions are displayed at Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop. (MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop is located across Dial Rent to Own along Beach Road in Chalan Kanoa. (MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike other shops that sell leis, Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop only charges a flat fee of $25 for their flower garlands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you purchase the lei for $25 the labor comes for free. Let\u2019s say you want money there, right? You just bring your own money, whatever increments like $1 or $5 and we put it on your lei for free. No surprise fees,\u201d said Tuiolosega.<\/p>\n

The daughter of cultural icon Flowerpot Salas said she originally branched out with her own store after realizing the need to preserve island culture for the next generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom didn\u2019t want to lock herself down into one building. She wanted to be mobile and be out there with the community. So she said \u2018just open your own store\u2019 and then she\u2019ll stay in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from the leis and mwars, Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop also carries several island- and tribal-themed bags, slippers, and accessories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bags have a modern fashion theme. We all like to travel and when we go off-island we want something to show off our home, like the CNMI seal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bags at Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop retail at $80 for the whole set and it comes with a flower, while the slippers of varied island-inspired designs are only $20.<\/p>\n

Tuiolosega said her shop also displays and sells local artists\u2019 masterpieces and even makes their own pure coconut oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture is very important to our family. So we try to keep it alive in our business. By having these readily made to physically purchase you\u2019re having a piece of our culture and there\u2019s a lot of stories behind all of these pieces. They\u2019re all different pieces, and they have different meanings to our culture. So it\u2019s not just a business, it\u2019s a business that also tries to preserve our culture,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As tourists slowly return to the islands, some have wandered to Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop and Tuiolosega welcomes them even if they don\u2019t really purchase anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cTourists love to come by and model a piece of our flowers.\u00a0 We let them try on all our products for free and when they go back home it\u2019s like they\u2019re promoting the islands to potential tourists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop is open Monday through Friday, from 10am to 8pm, and Saturdays from 11am to 5pm. Outside of those hours, Tuiolosega said she can make appointments for emergency purchases.<\/p>\n

Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop is located across Dial Rent to Own along Beach Road in Chalan Kanoa. For more information, call (670) 287-7131 or email aofiasenmi@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aofia\u2019s Culture Shop as its name already denotes tries to keep Pacific island culture alive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":391133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}