I think you're confused about the strings. Python 3 uses UTF8 strings by default. The u"xx" syntax is only needed in python 2.x. In Python 3.x it's only supported for backwards compatibility.
right thanks for clarifying - I wasn't confused until Python 3 made it confusing.
EDIT: Ah I remember. In one of my attempts to move to 3 I wrote a few modules which worked with strings, then I had to stick "u"s everywhere when I passed them to my 2 code base.