How do I display file names in an encoding other than UTF-8? I have a couple of files/directories that are named in GBK. I think because finder assumes UTF-8 encoding, all of those file names are displayed as gibberish. How do I make Finder display their file names properly?
You need to move Chinese language to the top of the Preferred languages list in System Preferences > Language &amp; Region:


If you have Chinese file and folder names created in OS 9 and earlier, you can use File Name Encoding Repair Utility (untested).
This script gist also renames filename in GBK to UTF-8 (untested).
I found interesting information for using the Chinese language on the Mac here.
I also recommend you to read OS X: Cross-platform filename best practices and conventions.
In this forum there are user experiments about this problem.