使用 Unicode字符串 :

# Encoding: UTF-8

japanese = u"桜の花びらたち"
print japanese
print len(japanese)

请注意字符串前面的u.

要将字节字符串转换为Unicode，请使用decode:"桜の花びらたち".decode('utf-8')

To convert a bytestring into Unicode, use decode: "桜の花びらたち".decode('utf-8')