HONG KONG — When its season opened late last month, the Paris Opera Ballet included the first Chinese dancer to be hired in its 346-year history.

Lam Chun-wing, a 19-year-old from a working-class Hong Kong suburb, is an unlikely addition to the world’s oldest ballet company — a state institution steeped in French tradition. He has already danced in George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations,” plus a work by Jerome Robbins, in a run that ended on Sunday. In November and December, Mr. Lam will perform in Rudolf Nureyev’s “La Bayadère.”

Mr. Lam’s entry to the Paris Opera Ballet is part of a gradual change at the state-financed company, where more than 90 percent of the dancers are French. He grew up in a small Hong Kong apartment with five relatives and started taking dance lessons at age 7 at a small branch of a chain of schools run by Jean M. Wong, the grande dame of the territory’s ballet teachers. At an annual event held only for top students, Ms. Wong quickly noticed that the boy was blessed with both talent and a classical dancer’s ideal proportions.

“Everything about him is very precise,” said Ms. Wong, who has been teaching for 55 years. “And he’s so musical — he finishes each step exactly on the note.” She was so impressed that she sent a DVD of Mr. Lam’s dancing to the Ballet School at the Paris Opera Ballet in 2011. That same year, at 14, he became the first Chinese dancer to be admitted into the academy.