diff --git a/lib/py/test/thrift_json.py b/lib/py/test/thrift_json.py
index cef8870..6d6c8fa 100644
--- a/lib/py/test/thrift_json.py
+++ b/lib/py/test/thrift_json.py
@@ -15,8 +15,8 @@
 class TestJSONString(unittest.TestCase):
 
   def test_escaped_unicode_string(self):
-    unicode_json = '"hello \\u0e01\\u0e02\\u0e03\\ud835\\udcab unicode"'
-    unicode_text = u'hello \u0e01\u0e02\u0e03\U0001D4AB unicode'
+    unicode_json = b'"hello \\u0e01\\u0e02\\u0e03\\ud835\\udcab\\udb40\\udc70 unicode"'
+    unicode_text = u'hello \u0e01\u0e02\u0e03\U0001D4AB\U000E0070 unicode'
 
     buf = TTransport.TMemoryBuffer(unicode_json)
     transport = TTransport.TBufferedTransportFactory().getTransport(buf)