Sink Floyd

Outside of the long vacation time I've never understood the attraction of the uni gigs.  But, like you said, I have known a number of uni ESL contract instructors that refer to themselves as a professor.  It's like being a hospital orderly and calling yourself a doctor, but academic standards be damned. 

I had a friend who was an actual professor.  He was a lawyer in America.  He married a Korean in California and moved here for a time.  He got a job in the law department teaching common law in English.  He was at Sogong in Seoul but they wouldn't give him tenure.  So, he found a smaller university in the country that gave him tenure.  He was paid well.  He slotted his classes into two days a week.  So, he was home 5 days a week in another small town an hour or so away where I lived at the time.  He made like 5 or 6 million won a month.  This is when I made 2.1 million (and that was a good salary at the time.)  Anyways, he was rich by local standards.  He even drove a BMW when they were less common than now here.  Tinted windows, we got the "oppa" stares.  Then we rolled down the windows and the racism (which was rife in Korea at the time) took over.  Use to be a lot more racism and gold digging all rolled into one.  I guess those two things from the "golden era" I don't miss.  Ha ha.  Anyways, my friend was a real "professor". 

Just out of interest does your friend have a PHD? Does he conduct original research? Does he have an extensive publishing record and mentor other student's PHD research?
It was embarrassing how loosely the term was thrown around in Korea. These days a few of my co-workers at the University where I teach have PHD's but still don't hold the rank 'professor'. There is seldom more than one who holds that title in each faculty. Perhaps it's a cultural thing.

You’re teaching in a university in Australia now? Good job; how’d you get it?

I had a friend who was an actual professor.  He was a lawyer in America.  He married a Korean in California and moved here for a time.  He got a job in the law department teaching common law in English.  He was at Sogong in Seoul but they wouldn't give him tenure.  So, he found a smaller university in the country that gave him tenure.  He was paid well.  He slotted his classes into two days a week.  So, he was home 5 days a week in another small town an hour or so away where I lived at the time.  He made like 5 or 6 million won a month.  This is when I made 2.1 million (and that was a good salary at the time.)  Anyways, he was rich by local standards.  He even drove a BMW when they were less common than now here.  Tinted windows, we got the "oppa" stares.  Then we rolled down the windows and the racism (which was rife in Korea at the time) took over.  Use to be a lot more racism and gold digging all rolled into one.  I guess those two things from the "golden era" I don't miss.  Ha ha.  Anyways, my friend was a real "professor". 

There are definitely some foreign professors, but the majority of ESL teachers at the university level here are instructors.  I can think of one annoying guy that I had on facebook who was always beginning posts with "As a university professor..." when he was no such thing.  Just moving from a public school to a uni gig was enough for him to elevate his status.  He's probably gotten himself a tweed coat with elbow patches and taken up pipe smoking by now. 

You’re teaching in a university in Australia now? Good job; how’d you get it?

Well, right now I'm on holidays to be fair. Anyway, I guess I just got lucky at the time when I networked my way in. It would be almost impossible to land something right now.  Decent qualifications do help to some extent. Depending on your role and where you fit in, a PHD could make you almost unemployable though.

Just out of interest does your friend have a PHD? Does he conduct original research? Does he have an extensive publishing record and mentor other student's PHD research?
It was embarrassing how loosely the term was thrown around in Korea. These days a few of my co-workers at the University where I teach have PHD's but still don't hold the rank 'professor'. There is seldom more than one who holds that title in each faculty. Perhaps it's a cultural thing.

Yep.  In the States, what I'm used to, there's quite a ladder to climb, something like: instructor, lecturer, assistant prof, associate prof, full prof.

I found this at wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_ranks#South_Korea

There are definitely some foreign professors, but the majority of ESL teachers at the university level here are instructors.  I can think of one annoying guy that I had on facebook who was always beginning posts with "As a university professor..." when he was no such thing.  Just moving from a public school to a uni gig was enough for him to elevate his status.  He's probably gotten himself a tweed coat with elbow patches and taken up pipe smoking by now. 

Yeah that's lame.  My friend was a real lawyer and had a resume of experience working for companies in the US like Intuit and others and maybe a law firm or two.  This was also a time initially when Korea was more desperate for foreigners.  I did meet another guy who was a lawyer but who had much less of a track record.  He worked in a uni position but mostly as esl and did a couple of law courses.  But I think he was paid more like an esl person and had nothing like what my friend had.  My friend was on the married F visa and then the F5 when it was easier to get than now.  (Though he did have the money and income to go with it.)  He got tenure, but divorced his crazy gold digging wife and married a much younger Korean woman and moved back to the States. 

(On the bright said, he did fill me in a lot about Korean culture and language tips, etc.  Some of his fellow professors who were Korean even quietly told him where the best anmas were back in the day.  Ha ha.  They were also useful in giving him Korean legal help IE  a gift to the prosecutor when getting divorced.  His ex wife tried to accuse him of crimes for revenge.  He knew how to make the prosecutor drop it in other words.  This was over a decade ago.  Korea was more corrupt until recently.)