My setup is:
linux + Ruby 1.9 + rails 2.3.8 + mongodb + mongo_mapper
I followed http://railscasts.com/episodes/194-mongodb-and-mongomapper, that everything is OK
cd $HOME vi .bashrc
add locale conf below:
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8" export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
save and run: source ~/.bashrc
Everything is okay~