In September, a young Tibetan woman died after her ex-husband came after her with gasoline and set her on fire while she was broadcasting a livestream from her kitchen. In October, a video circulated of a man in Shanxi apparently beating his wife to death while bystanders stood by looking on.
"With fists, with kerosene, with acid... Flushed down the sewer, from the marriage house to sinking in the riverbed," Tan sings. "Imprisoned my body and cut my tongue, silently weaving tears into the silk and brocade."
Victims of domestic violence in the country frequently have little recourse to finding justice and reporting is low. China only passed a law specifically criminalizing domestic violence in 2015.
The state-run All-China Women's Federation estimates that about one in three married Chinese women will experience domestic violence. Yet in 2018, the federation only logged 39,371 official reports from the nation's estimated 270 million families.
In recent years more women have been willing to speak up. With the spread of the global #MeToo movements, dozens of young Chinese women brought public accusations of sexual harassment against high-profile men, with some even bringing the accusations to court. That boldness, however, has yet to transfer to cases of domestic violence.
On Weibo, a widely used microblogging platform, a hashtag called "Tan Weiwei's song lyrics are really brave" has been viewed more than 340 million times, far more than the 5.2 million views for the song's music video. Many observed that her song could be linked to real cases of deaths reported in news media.
Tan's latest album 3811, tells different women's stories through 11 songs, from a Tang-dynasty female poet to a 12-year old girl named Aguo who marries a tree in a ritual ceremony to transition to a woman. But it's, "Xiao Juan," the last song on the album, with its tribute to victims of domestic violence that's garnered the most attention.
Tan demands that these victims be remembered not as "Xiao Juan," which is similar to Jane Doe, or other anonymous names that are often used in media or police reports.
"Our names are not 'Xiao Juan,'" she sings. "Know my name. Remember my name."