GREEN BAY — The Lunar New Year begins today, Jan. 29.

It’s a complex holiday with much symbolism crammed into days of festivities filled with material abundance, but here’s how to make sense of this millennia-old custom as the Green Bay area hosts its own Lunar New Year activities.

What is Lunar New Year?

It’s the beginning of the new year as marked by the ancient Chinese calendar that blended Earth’s revolutions around the sun with the cycles of the moon.

This “lunisolar” calendar in line with the cycles of nature governed not only the culturally important religious ceremonies but, more practically, the agricultural life of farmers.

As the new year approached with the first new moon, it offered those working the fields their only opportunity to rest in the year. Still, there was still much work to do and prepare the material things for celebration — noodles, dumplings, rice cakes, money, new clothes.

Are the Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year the same thing?

Chinese New Year is a 15-day festival celebrated in China and Chinese communities, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Lunar New Year is widely celebrated in Asian societies of the world that were within dynastic China’s sphere of influence, or have large Chinese populations. It’s why South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore celebrate, but Japan does not.

What do you do on Lunar New Year?

The day before the first new moon of the year is like Thanksgiving.

There are dumplings whose shape resembles gold ingots, symbolizing wealth. There are chewy rice cakes — like pasta but made out of pounded rice — whose literal translation in Chinese is “high year” to symbolize the hope that every year gets better. There are long noodles whose length symbolizes the hope for a long life.

Children get the once-in-a-year opportunity for new clothes, another symbol of casting away the old and hope for the new, and receive money from the older people in their lives in red envelopes — a conjoining of money and luck to get through uncertain times.

The next two days are for visiting friends and family, and the next few days are for rest and leisure.

At the year’s first full moon 15 days from the new moon that kicked off the new year, the lantern festival closes out the holiday, and life as it was resumes.

What’s the Year of the Snake?

It’s part of the zodiac that repeats every 12 years, each year represented by an animal.

This year is the Year of the Snake. People born in the Year of the Snake are said to be deft and ingenious, but also cunning and sly.

When is Lunar New Year?

This year, Lunar New Year begins on Jan. 29, but because the cycles of the moon don’t line up with the solar cycles, it can fall anywhere from the end of January to the beginning of February on the Gregorian calendar.

Wishley Zhang of Green Bay plays near a Year of the Dragon ice sculpture during a Lunar New Year celebration Feb. 1 in the Titletown District in Ashwaubenon.

What’s happening in the Green Bay area for Lunar New Year?

• Titletown District will have lucky red envelope activities on Jan. 29, paper lantern-making on Jan. 30, and zodiac puppet-making on Jan. 31.

Jesse Lin is a reporter covering the community of Green Bay and its surroundings, as well as politics in northeastern Wisconsin. Contact him at 920-834-4250 or [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: What to know about the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Snake