code: def _byteify(data, ignore_dicts=False):
      
      if isinstance(data, unicode):
          return data.encode("utf-8")
  
      if isinstance(data, list):
          return [_byteify(item, ignore_dicts=True) for item in data]
  
      if isinstance(data, dict) and not ignore_dicts:
          return {
              _byteify(key, ignore_dicts=True): _byteify(value, ignore_dicts=True)
              for key, value in data.iteritems()
          }
      return data
docs: converts unicode to utf-8 when reading in json files