Set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1945, The Frontiers of Love passes effortlessly in and out of Asian and Western fields of reference to explore the issue of cultural identity in a city dominated by Western colonialism. Diana Chang uses psychological portrayal, historical narrative, and sociological observation to achieve a multi-dimensional view of a city both Chinese and Western, liberating and oppressive, national and international. As the character Feng observes of Shanghai, "Strictly speaking, it could not be called Chinese, though it was inhabited mostly by Chinese - Chinese who were either wealthy, Westernized, or prayed to a Christian God".