The Chinese actually have five cardinal directions, because in addition to the conventional ones, they also count the middle of the compass as one of the major directions... if not the most significant one of them all. In Chinese, China is called Zhongguo, “middle kingdom.” Looking from there, everybody else is situated east or west, south or north.

In Chinese, east is dōng and west is xī. An interesting detail is that when you put together east and west, dōngxī, the word takes on the meaning of “things, matters.” The explanation to this might be the fact that early in history during the Han era (25-220), there were two major metropolises -- the capital Luoyang in the east and Chang'an (nowadays Xian) in the west. When people went shopping, they went either to the east, dōng or the west, xī. “Eastwest,” dōngxī, came to stand for all those things you could purchase in these wonderful cities.

North is bĕi in Chinese, and the name of the current capital of China, Beijing, actually means “northern capital.” This is to distinguish it from the previous capital Nanjing. The word nán stands for south, thus Nanjing means “southern capital.” The last time that Nanjing was the capital of China was during the Republican era (1911-1949). And, talking about capitals, the famous tourist attraction, Xian, in western China used to be the capital of 12 dynasties for a period spanning one thousand years. Its name, Xian, literally means “western peace.” To the east of China we can also find the “eastern capital” Dongjing, ie Tokyo.

dōng 东 east
xī 西 west
nán 南 south
bĕi 北 north