Str encode in a thread

str_encode_thread.py

import time
import threading


def to_latin_1(event, value):
    print(time.time(), "Before encode")
    value.encode('latin-1', 'ignore')
    print(time.time(), "After encode")
    event.set()
    print(time.time(), "Event set")

event = threading.Event()
thread = threading.Thread(target=to_latin_1, args=(event, u'42'))
thread.start()

event.wait(10)

test.py

import str_encode_thread