Issue when updating or inserting non-ASCII characters to VARCHAR UNICODE column

Hello list,

I am in the process of enabling a content management system of ours for 
international use. Its architecture is an SAPDB 7.4.3.27 database instance as 
the back end, and Resin 2.1.16 as the application server, using the SAPDB JDBC 
driver to communicate with the database. The database instance is set to 
_UNICODE=YES.

The issue that I'm experiencing is that when inserting or updating a field 
using a PreparedStatement of Sun's JDK 1.4.2, odd character conversions occur 
if the target field is of type VARCHAR(100) UNICODE, but works better if the 
field is of type LONG UNICODE. A specific example for the ç (ç) 
character is:

Let TBLLANGUAGENAME have two columns: ID UNIQUE INTEGER, LANGUAGENAME 
VARCHAR(100) UNICODE

Using a prepared statement to execute "UPDATE TBLLANGUAGENAME SET 
LANGUAGENAME=? WHERE IID=?", where ID is an existing unique id, and 
LANGUAGENAME='Français', fails with the ç being translated to ç. However, the 
same statement using SQL Studio works, the ç gets into the LANGUAGENAME field.

If instead the table is defined like this:

Let TBLLANGUAGENAME have two columns: ID INTEGER, LANGUAGENAME LONG UNICODE,

using the same prepared statement with same parameters as above works to an 
extent. Instead of updating a ç into the LONG field, Français gets translated 
to Français, which of course also works for html display purposes.

What do I need to do to avoid getting non-ASCII character mistranslations in 
VARCHAR fields? Is it even possible, or (more likely), am I missing something 
fundamental?

Thanks for your insight!
/Johan Hellgren

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