did you try just copy the chinese characters and paste to the mysql database? just for one record. do you still get ????
if copy and paste is not working then it might be your mysql database set up issue.
what is the chinese encoding system?
big5 (traditional chinese used by taiwan and hongkong) or gb (simplified chinese used by mainland china)?
or the chinese is in unicode?
Also you may not have the right chinese software on your machine.
Excel can use some chinese package built in the microsoft office or windows 2000 or later to read or even input chinese into excel sheet. So you can read the chinese in the Excel sheet.
But that same microsoft's chinese package may not work with the mysql. so unless you install right chinese software on your machine, you may not be able to read the chinese in mysql even the transfer is right.