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>