title: json_encode() in PHP returns Chinese characters in escaped Unicode
body: <p>I’ve got a simple PHP one-dimension array.</p>
  
  <p>When I do a var dump (<code>echo var_dump($a)</code>), I get this as the output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>array(3) { [0]=&gt;  string(3) "尽" [1]=&gt;  string(21) "exhausted||to exhaust" [2]=&gt;  string(4) "jin3" }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, when I json_encode it (<code>echo json_encode($a)</code>) I get this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>["\u5c3d","exhausted||to exhaust","jin3"]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The hex value that it’s returning is the correct one, but I can’t figure out how to <strong>stop</strong> it from giving me the hex.  I just want it to display the character.</p>
  
  <p>If I <code>echo mb_internal_encoding()</code> it returns UTF-8, which is what I’ve set it to. I’ve been very careful in all my string manipulation to use the mb_ functions so none of the data gets messed up.</p>
  
  <p>I know that I could write a modified json_encode function which would take care of the problem.  But I want to know what’s going on here.</p>