Also check the mySql server collation . The default settings will always use latin1 latin1_swedish_ci unless the server collation is defined on startup.
If you don't specify a character set, that is the same as saying > --character-set-server=latin1<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-options.html#option_mysqld_character-set-server>. > If you specify only a character set (for example, latin1) but not a > collation, that is the same as saying > --character-set-server=latin1<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-options.html#option_mysqld_character-set-server> > > --collation-server=latin1_swedish_ci<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-options.html#option_mysqld_collation-server> > because latin1_swedish_ci is the default collation for latin1. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-server.html <http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-server.html> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-syntax.html