Despite the city being mundane and the locals reacting to you like an UFO

Your experiences there sound like hell firstly.

Secondly, shandong being a more remote northern province means outsiders, incl. foreigners, are often viewed with fright or suspicion. Unlike say Guangdong which has been in close contact with the west for a few hundred years more than the rest of China, and also due to it's proximity to HK and Macau, Shandong only really had contact with the germans in qingdao. The mindset of managers where you were is very typical of not understanding the foreigners neeeds or wants.