"How silly, father! How can't you recognize our national flag?" the little daughter of Shi Zhanming asked him after he made a serious, silly mistake in a group final of the 11th CCTV national youth singing contest May 11.

Folk singer Shi Zhanming [huash.com]

Folk singer Shi Zhanming from Shanxi Province in Northwest China made headlines for mistaking the national flag of England for the Chinese flag in the contest, which triggered strong criticism from the audience.

Waves of rebounds from the audience may be attributed to the thought that Shi doesn't love his motherland at all because he even doesn't know the national flag, the basic knowledge, which is taught in primary schools.

"I feel painful and sorry when I heard the answer," Yu Qiuyu, a renowned Chinese writer and academician, said when he heard Shi's answer as an adjudicator of the contest.

In fact, some minority contestants or those from the remote rural places do not even know some basic Chinese historical facts nor speak mandarin at all.

"Do they not love their motherland? Is this their fault? Should we criticize these guys since we have received much better education?" The answer to these questions is definetely "No."

Coming from a farming family in a remote village in Shanxi, Shi's life was dramatically changed in 2002 when he won the title "King Singer" in a Shanxi folk song contest. Prizes began pouring in and the shepherd was invited to be a visiting instructor at the China Conservatory in Beijing before joining an army art troupe.

Shi's case is not an isolated problem, it is a social issue nowadays. The gap in terms of socio-economic-educational development between China's rural and urban areas is clearly very large, partly attributed to historical reasons.

However, the Chinese government has started to make preferential policies to boost rural development in an all-round way.

Starting this year, the centeral government will appropriate over 103 billion yuan annually to ensure the normal operation of grass-root governments and meet the needs of rural compulsory education. This figure is comprised of more than 78 billion yuan in transfer payments from the central government budget and over 25 billion yuan from local government budgets.

Further, over the next two years, the government will completely eliminate tuition and miscellaneous fees for all rural students receiving compulsory education. Its budget expenditures for compulsory education will increase by 218.2 billion yuan over the next five years, said the Report of Government.

China is really trying its best to improve the socio-economic-educational quality of the rural areas like the places where Shi has come from.

Many among the audience hope, for the time being, the media and the public would not be too harsh on Shi and his comrades. Sources said Shi would participate in the coming individual final competition in July and is confident to win.