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Q&A Is it a bad idea to use a culture-specific word in the title of a story?

I wrote a short story long ago called The End of the World. I thought the title was too common so I renamed it to The Kid with the Gigaku Mask and the End of the World. But then, I found that title...

0 answers  ·  posted 11y ago by Alexandro Chen‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:56:16Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/8182
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Alexandro Chen‭ · 2019-12-08T02:56:16Z (over 4 years ago)
I wrote a short story long ago called _The End of the World_. I thought the title was too common so I renamed it to _The Kid with the Gigaku Mask and the End of the World_. But then, I found that title to be too long, so I just left it as _The Kid with the Gigaku Mask._

I'm clear that no Western reader would know what a gigaku mask is, but I think at least, they will know that is something related to Japan.

I'm asking this because at first, I thought it was a bad idea to use a culture-specific word in a title. But judging from the number of [views](http://alexandrochen.quora.com/Short-Story-The-Kid-with-the-Gigaku-Mask) I got in comparison with my other stories, I think I was wrong.

Well, anyway, is this a bad or a good idea to have titles like this (in terms of marketing)?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-06-18T03:53:11Z (almost 11 years ago)
Original score: 6