force utf8 encoding at the mysql server level

config/my.cnf

@@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ tmpdir          = /tmp
 lc-messages-dir = /usr/share/mysql
 skip-external-locking
 lower_case_table_names = 1
+
+character-set-server=utf8
+collation-server=utf8_general_ci
 #
 # Instead of skip-networking the default is now to listen only on
 # localhost which is more compatible and is not less secure.
@@ -125,4 +128,4 @@ max_allowed_packet      = 16M
 # * IMPORTANT: Additional settings that can override those from this file!
 #   The files must end with '.cnf', otherwise they'll be ignored.
 #
-!includedir /etc/mysql/conf.d/
+!includedir /etc/mysql/conf.d/