ODBC & character encoding

Hi,
I am trying to run a query from .Net C# using ODBC on a Postgres 7.1
Database.

The database encoding is EUC_JP.
And as I use .Net the default encoding is UTF8.

My problem is that the 7.1 version does not support to set the client
encoding to UTF8 :
Here is the ODBC error log:
<code>
[ Client encoding = 'EUC_JP' (code = 1) ]
conn=105462528, query='set client_encoding to 'UTF8''
ERROR from backend during send_query: 'ERROR: Client encoding UTF8 is not
supported'
</code>

So when I insert Data, the japanese characters don't appear properly....
The database is running for a production server and I cannot stop the
service at all... Not to mention upgrading...

So my question is :
- Can the ODBC driver convert the query string from UTF8 to EUC_JP before
sending it to the database server ?
and how ?

I hope you understand my problem and my question...
Any help would be extremely appreciated,
Benjamin