JavaScript Strings are stored in UTF-16. To get UTF-8, you'll have to convert the String yourself.

One way is to mix encodeURIComponent(), which will output UTF-8 bytes URL-encoded, with unescape, as mentioned on ecmanaut.

var utf8 = unescape(encodeURIComponent(str));

var arr = [];
for (var i = 0; i < utf8.length; i++) {
    arr.push(utf8.charCodeAt(i));
}

You can use this function (gist):

function toUTF8Array(str) {
    var utf8 = [];
    for (var i=0; i < str.length; i++) {
        var charcode = str.charCodeAt(i);
        if (charcode < 0x80) utf8.push(charcode);
        else if (charcode < 0x800) {
            utf8.push(0xc0 | (charcode >> 6), 
                      0x80 | (charcode & 0x3f));
        }
        else if (charcode < 0xd800 || charcode >= 0xe000) {
            utf8.push(0xe0 | (charcode >> 12), 
                      0x80 | ((charcode>>6) & 0x3f), 
                      0x80 | (charcode & 0x3f));
        }
        else {
            // let's keep things simple and only handle chars up to U+FFFF...
            utf8.push(0xef, 0xbf, 0xbd); // U+FFFE "replacement character"
        }
    }
    return utf8;
}

Example of use:

>>> toUTF8Array("中€")
[228, 184, 173, 226, 130, 172]

If you want negative numbers for values over 127, like Java's byte-to-int conversion does, you have to tweak the constants and use

            utf8.push(0xffffffc0 | (charcode >> 6), 
                      0xffffff80 | (charcode & 0x3f));

and

            utf8.push(0xffffffe0 | (charcode >> 12), 
                      0xffffff80 | ((charcode>>6) & 0x3f), 
                      0xffffff80 | (charcode & 0x3f));

function stringToUint(string) {
    var string = btoa(unescape(encodeURIComponent(string))),
        charList = string.split(''),
        uintArray = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < charList.length; i++) {
        uintArray.push(charList[i].charCodeAt(0));
    }
    return new Uint8Array(uintArray);
}

function uintToString(uintArray) {
    var encodedString = String.fromCharCode.apply(null, uintArray),
        decodedString = decodeURIComponent(escape(atob(encodedString)));
    return decodedString;
}

I have done, with some help from the internet, these little functions, they should solve your problems! Here is the working JSFiddle.

EDIT:

Since the source of the Uint8Array is external and you can't use atob you just need to remove it(working fiddle):

function uintToString(uintArray) {
    var encodedString = String.fromCharCode.apply(null, uintArray),
        decodedString = decodeURIComponent(escape(encodedString));
    return decodedString;
}

Warning: escape and unescape is removed from web standards. See this.