Samoan people have different ways to learn and show how to be respectful. This is all about how our samoan parents teach us and how we honor our families and serve them in different ways.
Samoan families are founded on 4 posts standards . That is love (alofa), service(tautua), Respect (Fa’aaloalo) and lastly Obedience (Usitai) . By applying these qualities in our everyday lives, we show others that we were raised well, therefore bringing honor and respect to families. From youth Samoans are taught by parents to be respectful to all. In the Samoan language this is called “fa’aaloalo.
One of the phrases that reflects to me is about being respectful. The phrase is O le ala I le pule o le tautua and that means the path to leadership is through service, this saying is all about serving others by being respectful, helping each other,using your manners, and being polite.
The other phrase is from a song and it is Taumasuasua la’u ipu which means my cup runneth over and the cup should be filled with things that are useful and things that will help you in life for example like Family,friends,knowledge that God gave you and other things.
The last phrase is a phrase about keeping the distance between each other and the phrase in samoan is Teu le va which means keep the distance between each other by being respectful, disagree but not be mean, keeping the relationship between each other and being kind to each other.
