Illegal mix of collations (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) and (latin1_swedish_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation '='

[Tulong!]

Here's how the problem starts.
1. Entered Korean characters in a form.
2. Press submit and I receive that error.

Programming Language: PHP 5.0.4
Database: MySQL 4.1.13
Operating System: Windows XP SP2

Charset for the page: UTF-8
Charset for the table: UTF-8
Charset for the database: UTF-8

So where does latin1_swedish_ci come from? I tried entering the same 
string in phpMyAdmin and I didn't receive the error.

SNIPPET:

$query = "SELECT `id` FROM `table1` WHERE `column1`='$var'";
$result = mysql_query ($query, $link);