De Pan and Xianxian Mo say their offspring are too busy to visit them in their cluttered, humble west Auckland home.

Elderly Chinese couple De Pan and Xianxian Mo are two lonely empty nesters in west Auckland.

Their apartment in New Lynn is crammed with cardboard boxes, appliances, and old furniture, and has a damp smell.

It's not a place that their children visit.

"They're too busy," says Pan, who first told his story to the Chinese news website SkyKiwi.

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Pan, 86, and Mo, 82, emigrated to New Zealand from Guangdong, a coastal city in southern China, in 2007 to join their son and daughter.

SUPPLIED / SKYKIWI Elderly Chinese man De Pan and his wife Xianxian Mo live in a cramped apartment in New Lynn.

Not long after their arrival, the daughter moved to Australia and would come back once every two years, but not in recent times.

Though living in Auckland, their son seldom visits because he's always "busy with work", and it's the same with their granddaughter, according to Pan.

They have a grandson living in Hamilton and another daughter in China, whom they don't often see as well.

A phone call, or a text or WeChat message once in a while are what keeps the couple in touch with their family members.

"They're too far away. They don't have the time to visit us, and it's not convenient for us to go visit them by public transport," Pan says, when asked whether he misses his family.

They don't speak much English and rely on walking or buses for transportation.

Most weeks they stay at home, watch news on television channels broadcasting in the Chinese language or listen to the radio.

Pan goes alone to get their groceries from Chinese shops, because his wife has leg medical issues and cannot walk fast.

Pan stopped his only relatively social activity - swimming - a few months ago, because it frustrated him when he failed to communicate effectively with the administrator at a local pool where he went for a while.

"We tried to learn English when we first arrived, but it's hard for us to remember the words at these ages. We gave up on that later," Pan tells Stuff, in Mandarin translated into English.

Leon Li, the couple's former neighbour in New Lynn, is whom Pan would go to for solutions to digital or internet problems.

Li found Pan at the elevator door several times when he came home from work.

"After a while, I realised Pan had been waiting there particularly for me, because he doesn't know when I finish work," he says.

"When I told them that I was going to move, Pan looked disappointed."

Pan took detailed notes of Li's instructions on transmitting text messages, asking Li whether it works the same way if he wants to send texts to Australia.

After moving to their new west Auckland abode last October from St Johns, their life has become more secluded.

"I used to help my old neighbours repair their household appliances, such as electronic fans and televisions," Pan says.

"Now we live far away from those old friends, and we don't drive. We are barely in touch with them."

Still, he likes the life in New Zealand because of "the nice environment".

Chinese New Settlers Services Trust Foundation executive director Jenny Wang estimates four per cent of elderly people in New Zealand are Asian, and half of those are Chinese.

That means there are about 14,000 Chinese seniors in New Zealand.

"It's important to encourage the elderly to be more independent and find ways to enrich their own lives," Wang says.