mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_%';
+--------------------------+--------+
| Variable_name            | Value  |
+--------------------------+--------+
| character_set_client     | utf8   |
| character_set_connection | utf8   |
| character_set_database   | utf8   |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results    | utf8   |
| character_set_server     | utf8   |
| character_set_system     | utf8   |
+--------------------------+--------+

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/somedb?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf-8";

SET NAMES 'utf8'
SET CHARACTER SET utf8