diff --git a/lib/gollum/frontend/uri_encode_component.rb b/lib/gollum/frontend/uri_encode_component.rb
index f6891a7c..dcaabcd7 100644
--- a/lib/gollum/frontend/uri_encode_component.rb
+++ b/lib/gollum/frontend/uri_encode_component.rb
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+# ~*~ encoding: utf-8 ~*~
 =begin
   Copyright 2006-2008 the V8 project authors. All rights reserved.
   Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
@@ -39,7 +40,8 @@ end
 # define charCodeAt on String
 class String
   def charCodeAt(k)
-    return self[k].ord
+    # 'str'.ord is broken on 1.8
+    return self[k].unpack('U')[0]
   end
 end
 
diff --git a/test/test_unicode.rb b/test/test_unicode.rb
index 86860f71..8b478436 100644
--- a/test/test_unicode.rb
+++ b/test/test_unicode.rb
@@ -15,6 +15,12 @@ context "Unicode Support" do
     FileUtils.rm_rf(@path)
   end
 
+  test "uri encode" do
+    c = '한글'
+    assert_equal '%ED%95%9C%EA%B8%80', encodeURIComponent(c)
+    assert_equal '%ED%95%9C%EA%B8%80', CGI::escape(c)
+  end
+
   test "create and read non-latin page with anchor" do
     @wiki.write_page("test", :markdown, "# 한글")