东西

Thing is -literally- East West.

A form of encouragement - come on! 3 3 (3)
A hopeless illusion or futile attempt 3 2 3 3 (7)
Adding the vital finishing touch 3 4 4 4 (5)
Africa 3 4 (1)
America 3 3 (2)
An experienced person is a good guide 3 2 3 2 (1)
Assert false authority 2 3 2 3 (9)
Be driven to desperate action 3 2 4 5 (13)
Cactus 4 3 5 (5)
Feasting and pleasure-seeking 4 4 3 2 (13)
Helicopter 3 5 2 (4)
It’s not too late to fix a mistake 4 4 2 3 (13)
Kangaroo 3 3 (3)
Owl 3 3 4 (4)
Panda 5 3 (1)
Penguin 2 1 (3)
Pitcher plant 3 4 3 (4)
Pork belly 2 3 3 (6)
Ruin the final product by appending superfluous features 3 3 4 2 (7)
Something trivial or unimportant 2 3 4 2 (3)
Speaking to an ignorant or unappreciative audience 3 3 3 3 (7)
Steering wheel 4 5 3 (10)
Wait idly for opportunities 4 3 3 2 (11)
Weather 4 2 (1)

Feathers - Garlic - Skin
Son - Fish for - Moon
Square - Towards - Plate
To - Play - Piano
Dead - Mend - Prison
Old - Knowledge - Way
Fox - Fake - Prestige
Cat - Head - Eagle
Guard - Tree trunk - Wait
Beautiful - Country
Five - Flower - Meat
Straight - Rise - Machine
Bag
Urgent - Jump - Wall
Not - Continent
Cage - Grass
Add - Oil
Lamp - Red - Liquor - Green
Draw - Dot - Eyes
Fairy - Person - Palm of hand
Sky - Energy
Enterprise - Goose
Bear - Cat
Draw - Add - Legs

Hints

We have solved most of the clues, but are stuck trying to figure out what to do next.

How are you ordering the letters you extracted? You may notice the clues at the top are alphabetized by clue, so you should order by the given words at the bottom.

I got a cluephrase, and have done that, but I'm still stuck!

Now that you have mapped the letters, you need to pick out the relevant letters (and reorder them). If you notice, the English literal translations of some of the Chinese idioms are missing some words. Pick out the letters related to those idioms. These words have a canonical ordering.