Expats are joining China's startup boom. The trend has provided them with unexpected business opportunities and professional growth. Lin Nan brings you the story.

History is made once again in China. Online transactions for the Alibaba Double 11 shopping festival hit nearly 31 billion US dollars this year, a new record. Its success puts a big smile on the face of Charles Erickson, an American entrepreneur in Shanghai.

CHARLES ERICKSON CO-FOUNDER, BAOPALS "11.11 is always a very stressful period, but also a very exciting period."

Erickson and fellow American expats Jay Thornhill and Tyler McNew co-founded Baopals in 2016. It's a website that helps non-Chinese speakers shop Taobao and Tmall, two Alibaba-powered platforms. This year, Double 11 sales on Baopals reached about 50 thousand items worth 600 thousand dollars.

JAY THORNHILL CO-FOUNDER, BAOPALS "There is a Baopals service fee built into the price of every product on the site, and that's about 5 percent. And there is a small fixed fee starting at 2 RMB on the item. That's pretty much where our revenue comes from. It is small margin, but you know we are a massive platform, it is more about sales volume for us than anything else."

Although the website focuses on a relatively niche market, in less than three years it has sold over 2 million products and generated over 14 million dollars in revenue. Alibaba has helped bring unexpected success and wealth to Baopals' founders.

CHARLES ERICKSON CO-FOUNDER, BAOPALS "It has all these additional trickle-down effects that you may not see directly, that people are being able to create businesses and have a wellbeing from something that I am sure Alibaba never planned. That's what makes China or Alibaba a rich ground for entrepreneurship."

The technology boom in China has also helped expats grow steadfastly in their career paths. Lathika Chandra Mouli majored in engineering at New York University Shanghai. She became a business manager in a blockchain startup in Shanghai after graduation.

LATHIKA CHANDRA MOULI BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, ENERGO LABS "The good thing here is that because people see the value that foreigners can bring, they let them learn about the culture more, they let them integrate. I think if I have gone elsewhere, it would have been a bit different. Maybe it would have been a bit hierarchical, I would have to work for three or five years to be able to have any real impact on the organization."

With the experience she gained in Shanghai, Lathika has now landed in a similar job in Singapore. And she was grateful to start her professional path in China. In recent years, Chinese authorities have relaxed immigration rules in some cities. Their hope is that more foreigners will start businesses, and live and work, in China. Lin Nan, CGTN, Shanghai.