diff --git a/src/org/jruby/RubyString.java b/src/org/jruby/RubyString.java
index c39a9f6..1769f29 100644
--- a/src/org/jruby/RubyString.java
+++ b/src/org/jruby/RubyString.java
@@ -3834,11 +3834,10 @@ public class RubyString extends RubyObject implements EncodingCapable {
      * 
      */
     public String getUnicodeValue() {
-        try {
-            return new String(value.bytes, value.begin, value.realSize, "UTF-8");
-        } catch (Exception e) {
-            throw new RuntimeException("Something's seriously broken with encodings", e);
-        }
+        // we use the encodingless version so it uses the platform encoding in all cases
+        // since what we really want here is "assume bytes are in platform encoding and
+        // convert to a UTF-16 string".
+        return new String(value.bytes, value.begin, value.realSize);
     }
 
     @Override