diff --git a/rcu/RCU.py b/rcu/RCU.py
index 037ce29dd196e3df3eee8ea56bbe72faa9901ae0..0810f376ca416e41c8910debc69ed4818b531a12 100644
--- a/rcu/RCU.py
+++ b/rcu/RCU.py
@@ -34,7 +34,8 @@ def strs2bytes(var):
 #    print("str2bytes",var)
     if len(var)==0: return var;
     if isinstance(var[0],str): #make string a byte array
-            return [ord(c.encode('utf-8')[0]) for s in var for c in s]
+#            return [ord(c.encode('utf-8')[0]) for s in var for c in s]
+            return [c.encode('utf-8')[0] for s in var for c in s]
     return var
 
 def bytes2strs(var,step,dtype):