Funny. I come from Poland and for us the East/West dichotomy always made sense: the West = Western Europe and US (think richer, more organized, pleasant to visit) vs the East = remains of USSR (poorer, corrupted, wild), the "proper Asian East" behind it and the most exotic "Far East" at the very end. Not very politically correct, but this was a cognitive construct most of us here had in their minds, at least until this decade.
That is just equivalent to North pointing up. Many commenters have explained why that is the most prevalent.
I mean, except that you could of course have the subterranean view of the World, with North point up, East to the left, and West to the right, if you so like... Confusion guaranteed!