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[lorelei]

BTW, the posts about Korea on these fora are a bit outdated--Korean universities did some absolutely horrible things to foreign staff throughout this decade, and only last year did they realize their mistake and are trying to make up for it by offering a lot of tenure-track positions to foreign staff. However, the Korean unis are now complaining that not enough foreigners are applying; after knowledge of contract-breaking, unfair working conditions, lower pay, lack of tenure for foreigners became widespread throughout the world, they shouldn't be surprised.

Sorry to follow off on this tangent, but I'm curious now: how have things changed? You've said they realised their mistakes (which is good) but I'm skeptical that the same people who were gleefully changing contracts and obviously quite deliberately treating foreigners like sh!t are going to have had personality changes. (I had a colleague who arrived for a visiting prof job and found the teaching load was DOUBLE what had been agreed to: she complained and was told "it's too late now, the students have already enrolled"). I guess what I'm wondering is, even if there have been top-down policy changes officially, are the same old problems likely to occur on the ground?

I never quite understood why those unis treated people so badly anyway. Seemed very shortsighted. Was it just racism? Or some sense that foreigners were suckers who deserved to be taken for a ride? A lot of the stories here made taking a job at a Korean university sound like a lot of the East Asian "teach English for a year" conjobs: you get there and they confiscate your passport, will only pay you at the end of the year, etc...

[embitteredhistorian]

BTW, the posts about Korea on these fora are a bit outdated--Korean universities did some absolutely horrible things to foreign staff throughout this decade, and only last year did they realize their mistake and are trying to make up for it by offering a lot of tenure-track positions to foreign staff. However, the Korean unis are now complaining that not enough foreigners are applying; after knowledge of contract-breaking, unfair working conditions, lower pay, lack of tenure for foreigners became widespread throughout the world, they shouldn't be surprised.

Sorry to follow off on this tangent, but I'm curious now: how have things changed? You've said they realised their mistakes (which is good) but I'm skeptical that the same people who were gleefully changing contracts and obviously quite deliberately treating foreigners like sh!t are going to have had personality changes. (I had a colleague who arrived for a visiting prof job and found the teaching load was DOUBLE what had been agreed to: she complained and was told "it's too late now, the students have already enrolled"). I guess what I'm wondering is, even if there have been top-down policy changes officially, are the same old problems likely to occur on the ground?

I never quite understood why those unis treated people so badly anyway. Seemed very shortsighted. Was it just racism? Or some sense that foreigners were suckers who deserved to be taken for a ride? A lot of the stories here made taking a job at a Korean university sound like a lot of the East Asian "teach English for a year" conjobs: you get there and they confiscate your passport, will only pay you at the end of the year, etc...

Sorry, long off-topic post, but it is my thread:

It's very complicated. The experience your colleague had is still commonplace in Korea, but the differences between the top 10 universities in Korea and the rest are vast--beneath the top 10, they aren't really universities, IMO. However, at the top schools this kind of practice is disappearing, and a lot of professors are upset about this. They're quite angry (perhaps justifiably) that the Korean government, the university administration, and students are demanding more foreigners. However, the fact that Korean professors publish very little (if at all) makes me want to say it's their fault...

The first big change Korean universities (here I'm talking about the top ones) are doing is offering t-t positions and proper teaching loads (2:2, 3:3, 4:4 are now the norm for foreigners in addition to the Korean staff). They are also sticking to contracts and being more up-front about things like pay--BUT this is very much on a case-by-case basis. I'll mention names in a PM, but not publicly.

You can't compare the Korean university jobs to the teaching English con-jobs; at the bad universities this is the case, but not at the top 10. Sadly, those bad ones outnumber the top ones maybe 100:1.

As for why they treat foreigners so badly--I hate to boil it down to one platitude (there are of course many personal and cultural reasons and the motivations vary from person to person), but it seems to me that nationalism is at its core. This country was isolationist for hundreds of years and a mistrust of foreigners is rampant throughout the country. Combine that with an intensely hierarchical parochialism, nationalist mythologies that a Cold War reality encouraged, post-colonial rage, rapid industrialization and a U.S. army presence, and it all starts to make sense. Sadly, Korean nationalism is an intensely paradoxical, counter-productive, and irrational ideology, and sadder still, the Enlightenment is nowhere near as entrenched in everyday life here as it is in America or Europe.

I tell people that I used to think Kim Jong-Il was a madman; after moving to Korea, I know he's not mad, he's just Korean.

[oseph]

I am sure you have explained this elsewhere, and I've just missed it, but is there some reason you have to stay in Korea?  Your posts here and elsewhere make it sound like perhaps it isn't the right place for you.

[lorelei]

I am sure you have explained this elsewhere, and I've just missed it, but is there some reason you have to stay in Korea?  Your posts here and elsewhere make it sound like perhaps it isn't the right place for you.

I believe the OP has tried/is trying to get jobs elsewhere.

But once you have a job in Asia it can be much tougher to get a job in North America.

[embitteredhistorian]

I am sure you have explained this elsewhere, and I've just missed it, but is there some reason you have to stay in Korea?  Your posts here and elsewhere make it sound like perhaps it isn't the right place for you.

I believe the OP has tried/is trying to get jobs elsewhere.

But once you have a job in Asia it can be much tougher to get a job in North America.

Not exactly--I was applying to jobs in America BEFORE I came to Asia.

It's mostly to do with my wife. There are only two places in America we'd both want to live in, and I'm much happier here than I'd be in, say, Iowa or Alabama (nothing wrong with these places--just not for me). I've limited my applications to just two areas in America.

It comes down to this: Seoul is a great city. Korea is not a great country. Plus, my wife is Korean, and she's very happywith her career in Korea, which is better than being a waitress or unemployed in America...

[lorelei]

I am sure you have explained this elsewhere, and I've just missed it, but is there some reason you have to stay in Korea?  Your posts here and elsewhere make it sound like perhaps it isn't the right place for you.

I believe the OP has tried/is trying to get jobs elsewhere.

But once you have a job in Asia it can be much tougher to get a job in North America.

Not exactly--it's mostly to do with my wife. There are only two places in America we'd both want to live in, and I'm much happier here than I'd be in, say, Iowa or Alabama (nothing wrong with these places--just not for me). I've limited my applications to just two areas in America.

However, your path to a job in one of those two places might come via a job in Iowa or Alabama or wherever. You're a much more credible candidate for a good job in the US once you're already in a job (albeit a less-desirable one) that's in the US. If I hadn't been willing to go somewhere less desirable for a while, I wouldn't have landed a wonderful job in commuting distance to my SO.

[oseph]

Thanks for the clarification.  I am amazed that there are only two places in the US that would work for you and your wife, but unlike other posters, you seem to have accepted the consequences of limiting your job search that way, so kudos to you for that.  Good luck with making it all work.

[post_functional]

And "Why didn't you do all your degrees in one place?" - I might have been tempted to say something like "Because I'm not closed-minded and parochial" but that's just me...

Exactly, exactly, exactly.  It's such an absurd question.

[post_functional]

I tell people that I used to think Kim Jong-Il was a madman; after moving to Korea, I know he's not mad, he's just Korean.

Careful....

[sibyl]

I had an interview for a t-t position today and left with a bad taste in my mouth. The SC asked some very good questions, but mixed with them were really rude ones like, "why were you so confident in your research that you've already published a monograph?" and "why didn't you do all of your degrees at the same school?"

Also, at the end I was told that I would be contacted by the university weeks from now because the department needs to make its decision, send it to the university, etc. etc. I find this really unnecessary--why can't they just call me after their meeting and tell me their decision? The shortlist consists of two people, and the other also interviewed today, so I see no problem with a polite phone call.

Finally, they STILL haven't told me how much the job pays.

You were in the room and I was not, but based on your description I do not find this all that antagonizing.

I don't have experience with Korean practices, but my experience with other East Asian cultures would have led me to conclude that "why are you so confident" is a way of asking, "Are you another arrogant hotheaded Westerner who will follow your own interests, or are you going to put group harmony first like the rest of us?"  "Why didn't you go to the same school" also suggests to me a difference in cultural values, that we value movement in ways they do not, and the institutional hierarchy is not as rigid in the US as in Korea.

The "it will take weeks" is not unknown in the US either.  Very few institutions respond as quickly as they COULD respond; as many a wise forumite has said, the search committee is interested in its own convenience, not the convenience of the candidate.  Also, salary discussions are frequently postponed in the US until the offer is made.

So it may not be as bad as it seems.  Hang in there.

[alleyoxenfree]

I am sure you have explained this elsewhere, and I've just missed it, but is there some reason you have to stay in Korea?  Your posts here and elsewhere make it sound like perhaps it isn't the right place for you.

I believe the OP has tried/is trying to get jobs elsewhere.

But once you have a job in Asia it can be much tougher to get a job in North America.

Not exactly--it's mostly to do with my wife. There are only two places in America we'd both want to live in, and I'm much happier here than I'd be in, say, Iowa or Alabama (nothing wrong with these places--just not for me). I've limited my applications to just two areas in America.

However, your path to a job in one of those two places might come via a job in Iowa or Alabama or wherever. You're a much more credible candidate for a good job in the US once you're already in a job (albeit a less-desirable one) that's in the US. If I hadn't been willing to go somewhere less desirable for a while, I wouldn't have landed a wonderful job in commuting distance to my SO.

For every person for whom this conventional wisdom seems to work, I can name at least 10 for whom it did not, including myself.  Either they got stuck in Nowheresville, or they had to leave teaching and academia to get out, or they had to take dicier gigs to get away.  I would not recommend to anyone that they take a job in a place where they could not settle.  Period.  Too much in the job search is beyond the control of even excellent teachers and scholars.  We just rarely get to read the sadder-but-wiser stories because people are protecting their reputations, or still on the market, or it doesn't fit with the editorial tone of the industry papers and their duty to their advertisers.  The sheer number of academics on the market when they already have a job in Nowheresville is a clue to how hard it can be.  So his calculations about how to live life in the meantime seem just as sane, albeit with cultural adjustments necessary.

[lorelei]

alleyoxenfree: you make some valid points, particularly in highly competitive fields. But I guess we all gamble with our choices, which in many cases is a single choice: take this one job, the only one you've been offered, in an undesirable location OR turn it down, stay where you are and be unemployed (with the bonus round of the "move back in with your parents because you're broke, unemployed, and heavily in debt" option).

I know 3 people who never get an offer at all because they only apply for jobs in their dream cities, while they remain unemployed in grad school town, every year less likely to get a job as their PhD recedes further into the past and they work in non-academic jobs and publish nothing (the first couple of years out, they got request for further material, interviews, but now? nada). I'm pretty confident that if they'd taken a job (hell, applied for a job) somewhere less than perfect, they'd be in a position now to be applying for jobs in their dream cities with a track record of academic employment. Heck, they could have been tenured by now. I am sure people elsewhere on these boards have talked about what the choice boils down to: what you want to do for a living, and where you want to be living. I chose academia.

[alleyoxenfree]

alleyoxenfree: you make some valid points, particularly in highly competitive fields. But I guess we all gamble with our choices, which in many cases is a single choice: take this one job, the only one you've been offered, in an undesirable location OR turn it down, stay where you are and be unemployed (with the bonus round of the "move back in with your parents because you're broke, unemployed, and heavily in debt" option).

I know 3 people who never get an offer at all because they only apply for jobs in their dream cities, while they remain unemployed in grad school town, every year less likely to get a job as their PhD recedes further into the past and they work in non-academic jobs and publish nothing (the first couple of years out, they got request for further material, interviews, but now? nada). I'm pretty confident that if they'd taken a job (hell, applied for a job) somewhere less than perfect, they'd be in a position now to be applying for jobs in their dream cities with a track record of academic employment. Heck, they could have been tenured by now. I am sure people elsewhere on these boards have talked about what the choice boils down to: what you want to do for a living, and where you want to be living. I chose academia.

It is wonderful that is worked for you but this "pretty confident" view ignores the harsh realities of the sheer numbers in the profession.  Since they didn't apply, there's simply no way to determine whether they would or would not have found anything.  This is an argument from complete lack of evidence. 

And it is a dangerous one.  Although they may or may not - no way to tell - have developed an academic career, they would have been subjected to other elements that might have ended those careers.  Lack of travel money or research time.  High teaching loads.  Provincial colleagues.  I have seen countless good colleagues had their careers stunted by moving somewhere unhappy, while my former colleagues at Decent City held out for better positions - and found them in that very city.  They are now TT, directors of centers, or in longterm lecturer positions that work well for their families.  The people I know who moved to follow this gamble - and it is a gamble - wound up with less.

Young job-seekers!  There is just as much evidence - if not more so! - that this method does not work!  If anything, people applying from Podunksville, mired in high class loads and with little research or travel support, can find it impossible to publish, present, and even get away for interviews.  So many of my colleagues have seen years of work go down the drain, having had every last bit of enthusiasm for their careers drained, wound up socially isolated in towns where their lives did not fit.

There are gambles, and there are causal relationships.
Going to Nowheresville is as big a gamble, if not more so, than opting to work elsewhere, and accepting the gambles of that.

[madhatter]

Although the cautionary tales include some good points, it's also true that most people can grow to like or love where they live. Although "nowheresville" sounds like a depressing town, the OP thinks he would only be happy in two places in the entire US. To me, that sounds like someone whose mind needs opening.

[alleyoxenfree]

That's a good point, although people need what they need.  It may be that their research could only reasonably be conducted in certain places or without certain resources.  They may have medical needs that can only be followed in certain places. 

The fact is that academia is not very flexible to people's life needs - it's a little like being a farmer of a very particular crop.  In some fields, there is fertile soil and a good growing climate for that crop.  Others are more delicate and specialized.  This is nothing that we discuss with grad students.  All the more reason to be very realistic with them, as well as with ourselves.