‘Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?’ is essentially what you’re saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella’s garden, you have to say something like, ‘May I observe your gorgeous garden?’ So there’s two different words you have to use. Then he gave me another one: ‘You go to a temple, and you want to look at the gardens …’ I made up a sentence, this time with the polite ‘see.’ ‘No, no!’ he said. ‘In the temple, the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be equivalent to “May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?”’
