Events

l. M. (“Mark”) Weeks was born in Alaska and for many years has practiced law in Tokyo, representing technology companies from all over the world in connection with their fundraising, intellectual property matters, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and related disputes. For more than 10 years, Mark was the managing partner of the Tokyo office of the global law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
He speaks, reads, and writes fluent Japanese, was an International Rotary Club scholar to Japan during high school, and graduated from International Christian University, a Japanese liberal arts college. Mark attended Fordham University School of Law in New York City, where he practiced law for almost sixteen years before relocating to Orrick’s Tokyo office in 2004. During his formative years in Japan, Mark earned a black belt in aikido.

Also, like Torn, he is an avid motorcyclist, and his adult son is biracial and bilingual and lives in Tokyo. In addition to riding motorcycles and writing, Mark’s other passion is saltwater fly fishing.

In 1969, a naive young Berkeley graduate, determined to make the world a better place, joins the Peace Corps. He finds himself living in the tropical paradise of Fiji, formerly known as the 'Cannibal Isles', as a full-time forester - with a hundred employees to supervise. Inexperienced, yet self-confident to the max, he embarks on a 4-year- long adventure during which he dives deeply into the culture, becoming fluent in the Fijian language, eating everything from fruit bats to raw fish, earning the nickname 'Vuku Levu', or spiritually inspired one, and finding that dancing with Rotumans is better than Saturday Night Fever.
Like most Peace Corps Volunteers, he learns that the Peace Corps is far more than sending educated and enthusiastic young Americans to use Western science and technology to help solve problems in third world countries. It is a two-way educational process where the volunteers learn about life from the people they live and work with. The Fijian culture had only recently turned its back on cannibalism: witch doctors still put curses on people, and some individuals could walk on fire, leading Fred to question strict adherence to the precepts of Western science.
With the wisdom and candor borne of distance and maturity, Fred Bell admits to experiences that are funny, sometimes embarrassing, occasionally scary. With the help of his friends and neighbors he learns "to listen to learn", to tread the difficult waters of blatant racism, to maneuver the tricky business of female relationships, and to build on skills useful to his future career in international forestry. 
Bell wrote a book: Coming of Age in the Cannibal Isles"
This is the author's story of coming of age; but it is also about bringing greater understanding of different cultures to the reader. 
As we understand each other better, we have a chance at peace.