title: python utf-8 japanese
body: <p>I have some Japanese words I wish to convert to utf-8, as shown below:</p>
  
  <pre><code>jap_word1 = u'中山'
  jap_word2 = u'小倉'
  
  print jap_word1.encode('utf-8') # Doesn't work 
  print jap_word2.encode('utf-8') # Prints properly
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why is it that one word can be converted properly to utf-8 and printed to show the same characters but not the other?</p>
  
  <p>(I am using python 2.6 on Windows 7 Ultimate)</p>