What are those little "u" in my tuple? (python 2.7)

So i'm getting data from something sqlExtractor, I can't touch to sqlExtractor. problem is sqlExtractor is giving me a list of tuple (I'd like a list of list) So I thought about that : ``` myNewList = [] for tuple in myList: myNewList.append(list(tuple)) ``` problem is, my data are filled with little "u", what do they mean? They don't really bother me but since myNewList[i][j] will return the value without the "u". But I'd like to understand. So, what are they? Thanks. example - a tuple before and after conversion : ``` (u'Pado', u'Seba*', u'B31', u'27/02/2011', u'SINA', u'2', u'5', u'Paris', u'Zone bleu', u'211') [u'Pado', u'Seba*', u'B31', u'27/02/2011', u'SINA', u'2', u'5', u'Paris', u'Zone bleu', u'211'] ```