K.T. Arasu is the Chicago Commodities Editor for Reuters. He moved to Chicago from Indonesia in 1998, at the height of the Asian financial crisis. While in Indonesia, he traveled on assignment several times to East Timor, whose citizens were fighting Indonesian occupation of the territory. He joined Reuters in Malaysia, his home country, 16 years ago. In the following story, slugged WITNESS-ASIAN/ and headlined "WITNESS-Living in U.S. is reminder of Asian crisis," he compares the U.S. financial crisis with the Asian crisis of a decade ago.