The criteria of what makes someone an "adult" is surprisingly consistent across cultures.
In hundreds of interviews conducted by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and other psychologists, people from China to Argentina to Israel to the US have said that people become adults when they take responsibility for themselves, make independent decisions, and are financially self-sufficient.
But there's one additional factor that's a big part of Chinese life, yet notably absent from American life.
In a 2004 study of Chinese university students lead by Brigham Young University psychologist Larry J. Nelson, 89% of respondents said that being able to financially support your parents was seen as necessary for being an adult.
In a 2003 study of American students by Nelson, only 16% of respondents thought that being able to take care of your parents financially was a condition of adulthood.
Seen together, the studies suggest that "adulthood" is a deeply cultural idea: In individualist America, your parents are thought to be on their own; in collectivist China, they're your responsibility.
Nelson and his colleagues trace the emphasis on taking care of parents back to Confucious, the 2,500-year-old sage whose philosophy animates Chinese culture.
They say that Confucian doctrine "places great importance on putting the needs and interests of the family before one's own, as well as constraining the self and controlling one's own emotions."
It's about putting your family before yourself.
"As a result, Chinese young people may give greater weight to criteria that have connotations of self-control and obligations to others, such as entering marriage, becoming a parent, and caring for parents," Nelson and his colleagues argue.
For more on what people think turns people into adults, read Jensen Arnett's "Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties."