mysql hibernate unicode support - character set, collate

I just did following configurations to achieve Unicode support in my Java+Hibernate+MySQL project.

Configuring MySQL to support Unicode - set Character Set and Collate as :

CREATE TABLE YOUR_DB_NAME
 CHARACTER SET "UTF8"
 COLLATE "utf8_general_ci";

NOTE : You Need to do "ALTER TABLE" instead of "CREATE TABLE", 
      if you are going to modify existing DB.

Hibernate JDBC connection string :

jdbc.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/YOUR_DB_NAME?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8

Hibernate Configuration:

<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>
    ...
    <property name="hibernate.connection.charSet">UTF-8</property>
    <property name="hibernate.connection.characterEncoding">UTF-8</property>
    <property name="hibernate.connection.useUnicode">true</property>
    ...
</session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>