diff --git a/setup/resources.py b/setup/resources.py
index da7c246a01..0fe7a31ac3 100644
--- a/setup/resources.py
+++ b/setup/resources.py
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ from itertools import chain
 is_ci = os.environ.get('CI', '').lower() == 'true'
 
 from setup import Command, basenames, __appname__, download_securely, dump_json
-from polyglot.builtins import codepoint_to_chr, itervalues, iteritems
+from polyglot.builtins import codepoint_to_chr, itervalues, iteritems, as_unicode_recursive
 
 
 def get_opts_from_parser(parser):
@@ -358,7 +358,7 @@ class Resources(Command):  # {{{
                             get_opts_from_parser(p)]
 
             with open(dest, 'wb') as f:
-                f.write(msgpack_dumps(complete))
+                f.write(msgpack_dumps(as_unicode_recursive(complete)))
 
         self.info('\tCreating template-functions.json')
         dest = self.j(self.RESOURCES, 'template-functions.json')
diff --git a/src/polyglot/builtins.py b/src/polyglot/builtins.py
index 353e924a1a..d98859d15a 100644
--- a/src/polyglot/builtins.py
+++ b/src/polyglot/builtins.py
@@ -35,6 +35,18 @@ def as_unicode(x, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict'):
     return unicode_type(x)
 
 
+def as_unicode_recursive(x, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict'):
+    if isinstance(x, bytes):
+        return x.decode(x, errors)
+    if isinstance(x, unicode_type):
+        return x
+    if isinstance(x, (list, tuple)):
+        return type(x)(as_unicode_recursive(i, encoding, errors) for i in x)
+    if isinstance(x, dict):
+        return {as_unicode_recursive(k, encoding, errors): as_unicode_recursive(v, encoding, errors) for k, v in iteritems(x)}
+    return x
+
+
 if is_py3:
     def reraise(tp, value, tb=None):
         try: