go to your mysql  and in mysql command prompt type

mysql> show varibles like '%char%';

and also

mysql> show global varibles like '%char%';

and see the results;
database, connection and system variables should be utf-8

if not, you can change this settings by adding
default-character-set=utf-8

in your my.cnf or my.ini below [mysql] and [client]

and restart mysql service.