mysql> show variables like '%char%';
+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| 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                                      |
| character_sets_dir       | /rdsdbbin/mysql-5.5.27.R1/share/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+


+----------------------+-----------------+
| Variable_name        | Value           |
+----------------------+-----------------+
| collation_connection | utf8_general_ci |
| collation_database   | utf8_general_ci |
| collation_server     | utf8_unicode_ci |
+----------------------+-----------------+

# set character set and collation for database
mysql> alter database DATABASENAME CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
--------
# set character set and collation for new records in a table
mysql> ALTER TABLE TABLENAME CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
# set character set and collation for existing records in a table
mysql> ALTER TABLE TABLENAME CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;