I usually go with "reactionary versus progressive". It's very loose, so it tends to fit most countries, as long as you keep in mind where they come from.
So in Communist China or in the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent, former Soviet Union as well) "right-wing" would be Communist, as they do not want to change (reactionary) or want to go back to communist. Of course, there are non-communist right-wingers in the former USSR, such as Putin and gang, so it's not perfect.
And left-wing would be people interested in changing things, or in expanding certain new changes, such as the welfare state, or civil rights.
It's very crude, of course, and I'm sure you can poke holes, but for a single paragraph, non-dissertation, it tends to fit most non-extremes.
Other ones I've heard of are "equality versus liberty," people right wing want to expand liberty at the expense of equality, and left-wing vice versa. This one tends to be mostly American, and a bit European as well. In China it would not fit as well, and probably not in Russia though I do not know much about Russia.
Another one is "stability versus experimentation", which is less clear, but what I mean is that the right-wings on this scale want to maintain stability and order in society, and the left wing are willing to sacrifice (some) stability to try out new methods of organization that they think would be better suited.
Keep in mind that on all these scales except perhaps the "equality/liberty" scale I would be considered left-wing, so that's my bias. And as for the equality/liberty, that's only because I want to cut down welfare to a single basic income, which I hope* would increase equality so that everyone has a chance without sacrificing liberty so that "everyone is the same". Just as long as everyone can survive day to day and [eventually, like when we have robotic infrastructure so we don't need everyone in the workforce] also be able to do what they love/expand their knowledge, even when it's not profitable... I have no -real- problem with people living grandly. Just... not so over the top, and not while people starve. In that sense, I'd be more centrist/left-leaning.
*(no real proof beyond Mincome in Dauphin, Manitoba. Pretty stellar for the scale it was, but it's no country-wide roll-out)