Final edit: After reading the replies I've come to the conclusion that this was the wrong place to go to. I've had more replies about the politics and manners of the monks than an actual discussion about code. If someone responds to this with an explanation or a solution then I hope that this thread will come up in a google search for any beginners that have the same problem I do and serve as a warning. Hello, I've been trying to pass a Chinese character to a JSON hash but it always comes out as "女"

#!/usr/bin/perl

use JSON;
#variable declaration
my $gender = "Female"
#turning english selection to Chinese character
if ($gender eq 'Female') {
    $gender = "女";
} elsif ($gender eq 'Male') {
        $gender = "男";
} elsif ($gender eq 'Decline to state') {
            $gender = "";
    }


my $hash_ref = {};

$hash_ref->{'detail_sex'} = $gender;

print JSON->new->utf8(1)->pretty(1)->encode($hash_ref);<\code>

<p>This is the result I get:

{ "detail_sex" : "女" }

However, when I test another script it comes out perfectly.</p>

<code>#!/usr/bin/perl
use Digest::MD5 qw(md5 md5_hex md5_base64);
use Encode qw(encode_utf8);
use JSON;


my $userid = 1616589;
my $time = 2015811;
my $ejob_id = 1908063;
# md5 encryption without chinese characters
my $md5_hex_sign = md5_hex($userid,$time,$job_id);
print "$md5_hex_sign\n";
# seeing if character will print
print "let's try encoding and decrypting \n"; 
print "the character to encrypt.\n";
print "&#22899;\n";
print "unicode print out\n";
print "\x{5973}\n";
my $char = "\x{5973}";
my $sign_char = "&#22899;";
print "unicode stored in \$char variable \n";
print $char, "\n";
print "md5 encryption of said chinese character from \$char with utf8 
+encoding\n";
print md5_hex(encode_utf8($char)), "\n";
print "md5 encryption of wide character with utf8 encoding\n";
print md5_hex(encode_utf8("&#22899;")), "\n";
my $sign_gender = md5_hex(encode_utf8($sign_char));
#JSON

print "JSON print out\n";

my $hash_ref = {};

$hash_ref->{'gender'} = $char;
$hash_ref->{'md5_gender'} = md5_hex(encode_utf8($char));
$hash_ref->{'char_gender'} = md5_hex(encode_utf8("&#22899;"));
$hash_ref->{'sign_gender'} = $sign_gender;
print JSON->new->utf8(1)->pretty(1)->encode($hash_ref);
[download]

Here is the result: 160a6f4bf9aec1c2d102330716ca8f4e let's try encoding and decrypting the character to encrypt. 女 unicode print out Wide character in print at md5check.pl line 18. 女 unicode stored in $char variable Wide character in print at md5check.pl line 22. 女 md5 encryption of said chinese character from $char with utf8 encoding 87c835a6b1749374a7524a596087b296 md5 encryption of wide character with utf8 encoding 06c82a10da7e297180d696ed92f524c1 JSON print out { "char_gender" : "06c82a10da7e297180d696ed92f524c1", "md5_gender" : "87c835a6b1749374a7524a596087b296", "sign_gender" : "06c82a10da7e297180d696ed92f524c1", "gender" : "女" } Would someone kindly explain to me what is going on?