diff --git a/mysql-async/src/main/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/util/CharsetMapper.kt b/mysql-async/src/main/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/util/CharsetMapper.kt
index 6869c5ac..062e071a 100644
--- a/mysql-async/src/main/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/util/CharsetMapper.kt
+++ b/mysql-async/src/main/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/util/CharsetMapper.kt
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ class CharsetMapper(charsetsToIntComplement: Map<Charset, Int> = emptyMap()) {
         const val Binary = 63
 
         val DefaultCharsetsByCharset = mapOf(
-            CharsetUtil.UTF_8 to 83,
+            CharsetUtil.UTF_8 to Integer.getInteger("jasyncMysqlUTF8Collation", 224), //previous default was 83
             CharsetUtil.US_ASCII to 65,
             CharsetUtil.ISO_8859_1 to 69
         )
diff --git a/mysql-async/src/test/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/QuerySpec.kt b/mysql-async/src/test/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/QuerySpec.kt
index 9bd3443d..c7d7c5f6 100644
--- a/mysql-async/src/test/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/QuerySpec.kt
+++ b/mysql-async/src/test/java/com/github/jasync/sql/db/mysql/QuerySpec.kt
@@ -55,6 +55,24 @@ class QuerySpec : ConnectionHelper() {
 
     }
 
+    @Test
+    fun `test insert and query with unicode emoji`() {
+        val createTableEmoji = """CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE users (
+                              id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
+                              name VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET 'utf8mb4' NOT NULL ,
+                              PRIMARY KEY (id) );"""
+        val insertEmoji = """INSERT INTO users (name) VALUES ('Boogie Man💩')"""
+        withConnection { connection ->
+            assertThat(executeQuery(connection, createTableEmoji).rowsAffected).isEqualTo(0)
+            assertThat(executeQuery(connection, insertEmoji).rowsAffected).isEqualTo(1)
+            val result: ResultSet = executeQuery(connection, this.select).rows
+
+            assertThat(result[0]("id")).isEqualTo(1)
+            assertThat(result(0)("name")).isEqualTo("""Boogie Man💩""")
+        }
+
+    }
+
     @Test
     fun `"connection" should   "be able to select from a table" - validate columnNames()`() {