Problem with Pidgin and getting Chinese characters instead of English

[Alex Garcia-Rojas]

Hello, I've been using Pidgin for a while now and have not been able
to fix a problem I've been having.  If I am talking to someone who has
the mobile device image next to their screen name, most of the things
they send to me get changed into what looks like Chinese rather than
being in English.  I don't know what is causing this problem and it
only ever happen when talking to someone listed as being on a mobile,
and it has started up a few months ago I think.  If you can shed any
light on this as it gets very difficult communicating with people when
i can't understand almost any of what they type to me.