#! /usr/bin/perl -w
  use strict;
  use Tk;
  
  # use utf8; # <- makes everything even worse
  use Encode;
  my $enc = 'utf-8';
  
  my $umlauts = 'öäü';
  my $text = decode("utf-8", $umlauts);
 
  my $mw = MainWindow->new; 
  # scrambled string widgets
 $mw->Label(-text => encode($enc, $umlauts))->pack;
 $mw->Label(-text => decode($enc, $umlauts))->pack; 
 $mw->Label(-text => $umlauts)->pack;
 $mw->Label(-text => $text)->pack;
 $mw->Label(-text => encode("iso-8859-1", $umlauts))->pack;

 # the only one that creates shiny umlauts
 $mw->Label(-text => encode("iso-8859-1", $text))->pack;
 
 MainLoop;