cannot encode a buffer??

[Sam Steingold]

GNU Emacs 21.3.50.1 (i386-msvc-nt5.0.2195)
 of 2003-06-16 on WINSTEINGOLDLAP
--with-msvc (12.00)

I have a file which starts with
";;; -*- coding: utf-8-unix -*-"

when I try to save it, I get this:

These default coding systems were tried to encode text
in the buffer `.bbdb':
  utf-8-unix
However, each of them encountered these problematic characters:
  utf-8-unix: 山 本 和 彦
The first problematic character is at point in the displayed buffer,
and C-u C-x = will give information about it.

Select one of the following safe coding systems, or edit the buffer:
  iso-2022-7bit compound-text-with-extensions
Or specify any other coding system
on your risk of losing the problematic characters.

clicking on the "problematic characters" gives;

  character: 山 (0156663, 56755, 0xddb3)
    charset: japanese-jisx0208 (JISX0208.1983/1990 Japanese Kanji: ISO-IR-87.)
 code point: 59 51
     syntax: w  which means: word
   category: C:Chinese (Han) characters of 2-byte character sets   j:Japanese  
             |:While filling, we can break a line at this character.  
buffer code: 0x92 0xBB 0xB3
  file code: not encodable by coding system utf-8-unix
       font:
             -outline-MS 
Mincho-normal-r-normal-normal-13-97-96-96-c-70-jisx0208-sjis

now, when I type "utf-8-unix" at the "Select coding system (default
iso-2022-7bit):" prompt, the file is saved, but the next time I have to
save the file, the problem repeats, i.e., I am asked to enter
"utf-8-unix" &c.

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running RedHat9 GNU/Linux
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