perl urlencode

[root@node01 ~]# cat a1.pl
use URI::Escape;

my $a='中国';
$encoded = uri_escape("$a"); 
print $encoded."
";
$decoded  = uri_unescape($encoded); 
print $decoded."
";
[root@node01 ~]# perl a1.pl
%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD
中国