jsonpickle/json function input utf-8, output unicode?

Wrote the following two functions for storing and retrieving any Python (built-in or user-defined) object with a combination of json and jsonpickle (in 2.7)

def save(kind, obj):
    pickled = jsonpickle.encode(obj)
    filename = DATA_DESTINATION[kind] \\returns file destination to store json
    if os.path.isfile(filename):
        open(filename, 'w').close()
    with open(filename, 'w') as f:
        json.dump(pickled, f)

def retrieve(kind):
    filename = DATA_DESTINATION[kind] \\returns file destination to store json
    if os.path.isfile(filename):
        with open(filename, 'r') as f:
            pickled = json.load(f)
            unpickled = jsonpickle.decode(pickled)
            print unpickled

I haven't tested these two functions with user-defined objects, but when i attempt to save() a built-in dictionary of strings, (ie. {'Adam': 'Age 19', 'Bill', 'Age 32'}), and i retrieve the same file, i get the same dictionary back in unicode, {u'Adam': u'Age 19', u'Bill', u'Age 32'}. I thought json/jsonpickle encoded by default to utf-8, what's the deal here?

[UPDATE]: Removing all jsonpickle encoding/decoding does not effect output, still in unicode, seems like an issue with json? Perhaps I'm doing something wrong.

You can encode the unicode sting after calling loads().

json.loads('"\\u79c1"').encode('utf-8')

Now you have a normal string again.