Check out current character set
SELECT CCSA.character_set_name FROM information_schema.`TABLES` T,
information_schema.`COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY` CCSA
WHERE CCSA.collation_name = T.table_collation
AND T.table_schema = DATABASE_NAME
AND T.table_name = TABLE_NAME;
+--------------------+
| character_set_name |
+--------------------+
| latin1 |
+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Set UTF8 collation and character set
ALTER TABLE DATABASE_NAME.TABLE_NAME CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
+--------------------+
| character_set_name |
+--------------------+
| utf8 |
+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
