真香 zhēn xiāng
When you swore you never would, and then you did.
The short answer
OnlineNow commonChecked November 2026
Zhen xiang means “it smells so good”. As a meme, it is what you say when you swore you would never do something, and then you do it and like it. It is the Chinese meme for eating your words.
In a chat
- 亮亮 Liangliang
你不是说再也不喝奶茶了吗？
Didn't you say you'd never drink milk tea again?
- 灯灯 Dengdeng
我是说过……
I did say that…
- 亮亮 Liangliang
那你手里拿的是什么？
Then what's that in your hand?
- 灯灯 Dengdeng
真香。
So good.
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How to reply
哈哈，真香定律！
Ha, the law of 真香!
我就知道你会真香。
I knew you'd eat your words.
When not to use it
- It is a joke about small things. Do not use it when someone changes their mind about something serious.
- Outside the meme, 真香 is a normal phrase: 这饭真香 means “this food smells great”. Use the context to tell which one it is.
What it means
Someone says “never”: I will never buy that phone, never watch that show, never eat there again. A week later they do it, and they like it. 真香 is the line for that moment.
You can say it about yourself, to admit you changed your mind, or about a friend, to tease them.
How people use it
真香 is usually said alone, at the moment of the turn. 真香定律, “the law of 真香”, is the joke rule that everyone breaks their “never” in the end.
It also works as a verb: 你会真香的 means “you'll change your mind, you'll see”.
Where it comes from
Chinese Wikipedia traces the meme to a 2014 episode of the Hunan TV reality show 变形计 (season 8), in which city teenagers live in the countryside. A teenager on the show refused the family's food and said he would rather starve. Later in the episode, he sat down to eat and said 真香.
The page says the clip spread again in March 2018, when meme-maker sites made it easy to put the scene into GIFs. The same page notes that people call the pattern 真香定律.
In use
2 examples他说不玩这个游戏，结果玩了一整晚，真香。
He said he wouldn't play this game, then played all night. So good.
我以前不喜欢吃榴莲，现在真香了。
I didn't use to like durian. Now I love it.
The characters
Explore individuallyIndividual character meanings do not always explain the meaning of the whole word.
Sources
This guide is original Dengdeng editorial content, offered under CC BY-SA 4.0. The linked dictionary entries adapt CC-CEDICT under the same license.