That "Thing" Over There...

A super useful word in Mandarin is dong xi (literally "east west"). It means "thing" or "stuff" as in "na ge dong xi" (that thing) or "zhe ge dong xi" (this thing).

东 = dong = east
西= xi = west

You can go to a store and point at something, saying "na ge dong xi..." and then the person behind the counter will usually respond by handing it to you and telling you the name of it. If you say something in Chinese, people will start talking to you and everything usually works out, but it helps to say something that they are used to hearing..."yeah, that thing over there, uh huh, right, that thing..." Somewhere in the mix, you will hear a noun that you studied before and everything will start rolling.

There is a great cartoon show in China called "kuai le dong xi" or "Happy Stuff" that gives a nice slice of ironic Beijing life and lots of use of the word "dong xi".